Rami Khoury On The “Breakthrough” With Palestinian Rights In Lebanon

Rami Khoury is feeling some winds of change:

The breakthrough that has been experienced in the past month is significant, but like all such historic moves it is not always fully clear as it occurs. The main achievement is that the matter of giving Palestinians their full human, refugee and civil rights according to existing international conventions that Lebanon has signed is now an issue that is openly discussed, in Parliament and in the media. An ugly taboo has been shattered. Many Lebanese are ashamed of how their country treats the Palestinian refugees. They feel that allowing the refugees to live as normal lives as possible (short of granting them citizenship, so that they do not vote or change the delicate political-sectarian balance among Lebanese) is the right and moral thing to do, simply on the grounds of human decency.

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Lebanon faces a moment akin to the political, legal and ethical challenges that Americans grasped when they faced and vanquished the crime of official racial discrimination in the 1950s and 1960s, or when South Africans seriously mooted changing their Apartheid system in the 1980s. Like those historic transformations, and any other human and legal transition from indignity to dignity, removing official discrimination against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will happen slowly. But it seems to have started, and the Lebanese will look back on this development one day with pride. It can also be a shining example to other Arab countries to face their own shameful mistreatment of the foreigners amongst them.