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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Lebanon: Nahr al-Bared's Neighbors Don't Want Refugees Back |
| 2007-06-21 |
| Shells whistling over their heads to burst inside the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared do not faze Lebanese villagers at Al-Minieh. They welcome them and want even more. After decades of peaceful coexistence, the death of dozens of Lebanese soldiers -- some having their throats slit by Fatah al-Islam terrorists on May 20 -- have sounded the death knell of neighborly relations with the camp. "It can never be like it was before, after what they did and allowed to be done," 56-year-old farmer Ali Baker said in Al-Minieh in northern Lebanon close to the Syrian border. Sipping cardamom coffee with neighbors under his family's climbing vine, Baker was interrupted by the rattle of a heavy machine gun the army had set up on a hill close by. He waited for the burst of fire to end. "No one here will forgive and forget," he said. The others agreed. "Each village in this area has lost at least one soldier." But, what about the Palestinian refugees who have fled the camp? "We don't want them back – ever," he replied. His son Mohammed, 30, holds up the tail-fin of a small caliber mortar bomb. "This fell in the field behind the house," he said. "You call that normal? You call that neighborly?" At a coffee shop near the northern entrance to Nahr al-Bared, traditional singer Abdullah Khwailed is a popular figure known throughout the area. But he is angry, very angry. "I know one soldier whose mother is Palestinian," he told Agence France Presse. "He doesn't speak to her any more. Now there is hate between us, a chasm that cannot be filled." The Beirut government's pledge more than a month ago to help rebuild the refugee camp, now a wasteland of pitted concrete beams and slabs, cuts no ice here. "These assassins and those who allowed them here must be cleared out," Khwailed fumed. "Flatten the camp and let them go to Saudi Arabia, Jordan or to the devil." His uncle, sporting a white moustache, Islamic skullcap and the occasional gap-toothed grin, said he knew the owner of the land onto which the original 1948 boundaries of the camp were illegally expanded. "Yes, he let it happen. But if they want to reconstruct those buildings he told me he'll appeal to the police and the courts. They won't be able to rebuild," he said. At dusk, families gather on plastic chairs, smoke water pipes and have a grandstand view of the explosions as shells detonate in Nahr al-Bared. They are joined by Mohammed Sahramen, 53, who arrives with a few friends from a mountain village to the east. "Every day I delivered milk and cheese to that camp," he told AFP. "I did good business and some of them were my friends. But if they come back I won't set foot in there again. So I lose money? Too bad. "They claim that these are foreign jihadists, Saudis... But we know very well that most of them are Palestinians from inside the camp. And that those who did not fight alongside them certainly agreed with them," Sahramen said. Under its status as a de facto free trade zone, Nahr al-Bared was renowned throughout the area north of Tripoli for low prices. People came from afar to buy food, clothing and tiles from its merchants, some of whom prospered. "It was great for shopping, sure," said 33-year-old Hassan Yassin, leaning against a red tractor. "But if they return, even if they give out stuff for free no one will go back in again. "This is not their land," he added. "If they're allowed back it will just start all over again in three months." Heads turn at the noise of a large explosion, and the onlookers watch a huge black and white plume of smoke and debris barrel into the evening sky. "Ahlan wa sahlan!" laughed Hassan Yassin and his friends. "Welcome" to Nahr al-Bared. |
| Posted by: |
| #5 Nahr al-Bared's Neighbors Don't Want There - fixed. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-06-21 20:04 |
| #4 In six months time Nahr al-Bared will be back to doing what all Paleo sites do, breeding death, misery and destruction. At least the Lebanese will no longer have an excuse to be shocked by this crapulence. The Palestinians are lepers being used as a begging bowl by Arab nations who totally disregard the dangers of infection. We have already seen Hamas threaten the use of bomb vests and vehicle bombs against fellow Muslims. When that day comes, someone please remind me not to laugh too loudly. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-21 17:51 |
| #3 'decades of peaceful coexistence'? Please, do me a favour! I'll believe the Lebanese villagers when they stop Paleos returning to the camp, but how are they going to do that, Paleos have guns, they have milk and cheese... In six months time Nahr al-Bared will be back to doing what all Paleo sites do, breeding death, misery and destruction. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2007-06-21 14:51 |
| #2 "This is not their land," he added. "If they're allowed back it will just start all over again in three months." Finally catching on, are they? Palestinian crapulence knows no bounds. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-21 14:40 |
| #1 They spread joy wherever they go... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-06-21 11:55 |