Wednesday, January 02, 2013

'Palestinians' Are..."Settlers"

What a break.  "Palestinians" are termed settlers.

A fellow Arab, Nayal Tueni, published on January 2, 2013 on the 'Palestinians", from a Lebanese viewpoint:


The Palestinian burden once more
We in Lebanon understand the moral obligation that hinders the closing of borders in the face of Syrian refugees and we have nothing against Syrians who oppose a regime that occupied and killed our people. We have never turned down Palestinians who sought asylum in Lebanon unless they constitute a direct threat to its sovereignty like what happened before when they assumed that Lebanon could be an alternative homeland together with the Syrian turned the country into a battlefield and a venue for settling scores and operating intelligence agencies.

...Syrian refugees [however] can go back home as soon as the conflict is resolved especially of the new regime offers to compensate them for their losses and also because life in Lebanon is too expensive for them. But this is not the case with Palestinians. Syrians still have the chance to get rid of their burden, but Palestinians do not, especially that the Palestinian cause has not become as pressing as it had once been in the midst of the current development.
...Lebanon is the only country that is unable to take a firm stance on the matter citing humanitarian considerations. The Lebanese government, which contains parties that support the Assad regime, is not expected to make such a daring decision as limiting the number of refugees flocking from Syria, particularly Palestinians because once they create their own security islands inside refugee camps, authorities are never capable of tracking them down. The number of Palestinian refugees will, therefore, increase and we will find ourselves dealing with a new reality, new settlers, and a new burden that will summon up the memory of the Palestinian nightmare of the 1970s. 
...the Lebanese people take precedent and that they should be given priority in benefiting from the country’s already-diminishing resources… 

(Nayla Tueni is a Lebanese journalist and politician. She won the Greek Orthodox seat for Achrafieh in the 2009 Lebanese Elections and and she is one of the few elected female politicians in the country. She can be found on Twitter: @naylatueni.)

*This article was first published in the Lebanon-based Annahar on Dec. 31, 2012

(Thanks or k/t [kippa tip] = AH)

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