| Why is today any different than any other day? |
 Barred from participating in Sunday's election to replace Yasser Arafat, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon fear being left in the political wilderness when the new leadership comes to power. "Despite the presidential elections, the millions of Palestinians of the diaspora remain without representation," the secretary general of the late Arafat's Fatah movement in Lebanon, Sultan Abul Aynain, told AFP. But a 30-year-old refugee born in Lebanon to a family from Tiberias in northeastern Israel, Ahmed Yussef, said the death of Arafat in November had left many feeling cast off by the Palestinian leadership as well. "While Yasser Arafat was still alive we knew that we would not be abandoned because he was the one who made Palestinian refugees into a people that asserted its national rights," he said.
| And took all the money, Ahmed, remember that. |
"Now that he is no longer there, his pragmatic heir-apparent, Mahmoud Abbas, is in a position to abandon us to our fate in the medium term whatever he says in principle."
| Well sure, and you would too if you could. It's in your culture. |
Scattered between Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as well as the occupied territories, Palestinian refugees are estimated to number 4.2 million according to UN figures published at the end of 2003.
| Funny, I do't remember that many people running in 1948. What a strange situation, 65 years of UN stewardship and they have more refugees than ever ... |
Israel opposes the return of refugees, which it argues would tip the ethnic balance of the Jewish state. The refugees and their descendants now live under precarious conditions on the fringes of Lebanese society, fearing that the elections will seal a new era that permanently excludes them.
| "And then where will we go? Mauritania? Don't make me laugh!" |
"The Palestinian leadership will be subjected to enormous pressure on the part of the United States for them to sacrifice the right of return," said Ahmad Sawr at the Ein el-Hilweh camp, Lebanon's biggest. "We need leadership that defends us and is not subject to Western pressure or held hostage by the Israeli army, like our late president was surrounded in the Muqataa," he said, referring to Arafat's Ramallah headquarters.
| "We need leadership that will cower in one position, fondle a red binder, make off with the boodle, and keep that fat sow of a wife far away from us!" |
Fatah representatives say that if Abbas is elected January 9, he will keep the title of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chief while also assuming the new mantle of president of the Palestinian Authority. Aynain of Fatah said the PLO was "the only authority that represents the Palestinians in the territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and those of the diaspora" of whom about 400,000 live in Lebanon. "It would have been better to find a means to have the refugees vote in the presidential election, but if he is elected, Mahmud Abbas will be considered president not only of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza but also of those of the diaspora because he is PLO chief," Fathi Abu Ardat, the PLO representative in Ain el-Helweh, insisted. But his assurances have not convinced the Islamic militants of Hamas, which has always remained outside the PLO framework. "The Palestinian presidential election is happening on the basis of the Oslo accords (in 1993) of which Mahmud Abbas was one of the architects," said Abu Hassan, a Hamas leader based in southern Lebanon. "Palestinian refugees are not taken into account in the process and the Authority president does not represent them." |