Reply #53: Lebanon debates giving Palestinians rights [View All]

[shira]

EIN EL-HILWEH REFUGEE CAMP, Lebanon -- Mohammed al-Amin spends his days doing little more than playing billiards and smoking cigarettes in this sprawling Palestinian refugee camp, where gunmen roam narrow alleyways dotted with tin-roofed, cement-block homes.

The 25-year-old studied dental lab technology but works at a small, grubby coffee shop in the camp, making $100 a month. He dreams of working with a respected doctor in Lebanese society and being welcomed like any other foreigner, without being looked down on.

"Sometimes I feel like a pressurized bottle that's about to explode," said al-Amin, who was born in Ein el-Hilweh years after his family fled what is now Israel. "Why should three quarters of the Palestinian people here be selling coffee on the street?"

The approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, many of them born here, are barred by law from any but the most menial professions and are denied many basic rights.

Now parliament is debating a new law that would allow Palestinians to work in any profession and own property, as well as give them social security benefits. The bill, due for a vote on Aug. 17, is the most serious effort yet by Lebanon to transform its policies toward the refugees.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/12/AR2010081200453.html