It is most likely that you’ve been watching the news lately in the Middle East and you saw what is happening in Lebanon, specifically at Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. A new militant group calling it self Fath al-Islam has been fighting with the Lebanese Army from inside the camp for more than a week; this fighting has left more than 80 people dead, which include army soldiers, Fath al-Islam fighters and civilians.
I don’t want to touch on the many internal political problems in Lebanon, but what is happening now in the Palestinian refugee camp. The Lebanese army decided couple of days ago to attack the camp to kill Fath al-Islam fighters, they are using now the same excuse as the Israeli army that those fighters are using civilians in the camp as human-shields, does that mean the army is allowed to bomb the camp? I think that The Lebanese army should reconsider another tactics to arrest or kill those fighters without killing the civilian refugees.
What I can say after researching/looking up information) looking around about it that Fath al-Islam is non-Palestinian terrorist organization. Watching and reading some interviews with their leaders can show that they have an extremist Sunni fundamentalist ideology which open doors to question what kind of support they have or what they want. I’ve read a lot of different opinions but there are two who I personally would think are true. The first is that this group can be funded directly or indirectly by the Americans to cause problems for Hezbollah whom is known to be supported by Iran, and this would be the same as when the American CIA funded Al-Mujahdeen to fight against the Soviet Union at that time, so they might be doing the same thing now in Lebanon or they have another reasons.
The other possibility would be that Fath al-Islam are funded and directed by a local party or group so to benefit their plan or goal. I read again that some political Lebanese
figures had demanded again that Hezbollah should give away their weapons so that only weapons can be carried by the army, even though Hezbollah forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 and then defending it again in July of 2006.As I said earlier, I don’t want to talk about this in depth as coming days will show us what all this drama was about.
I want to mention some of the problems the Palestinian refugees were facing in Lebanon for a long time before what happened last week between Fath al-Islam and the army. When I was a kid I lived in the Middle East and I used to go to Lebanon a lot, because I have family living there, who are both Lebanese and Palestinians that moved in Lebanon in 1948. I always enjoy to spend my summer break with them. So what I came up to conclude was based on what I read and what I was able to see of facts on the ground too.
Still in Lebanon there is a general racist attitude, which is a classical racism towards Palestinians. This is why it is easy for so many people to tolerate indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian refugee camps. Maybe this is a reason why until now haven't heard about any Lebanese political party standing next to those Palestinian refugees in any situation, and not even now when they are being attacked by the army. I read an interview conducted by Al-Arabiya television on May 23 with the Lebanese defense minister, Ilyas Murr, who stated that out of all fighters of Fath al-Islam that had been killed not a single fighter is identified as Palestinian, but mostly identified as Lebanese, Saudi, Yemeni, Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan and so on. So I still don't understand why I saw a lot of hate against the Palestinians last week in Lebanon, this is one of the main things I found in Lebanon that people there tend to hate each other just because of your political, religious or any other affiliations.
Palestinians in Lebanon also are not treated equally as other people there. I really hated that when I found out how much Palestinian are being discriminated against in Lebanon. Why can't the Palestinians in Lebanon work as doctors or lawyers there, those people with there knowledge and dedication can be in any of top countries in the world, I never knew that Lebanon is even better than all those countries! Meanwhile, about four hundred and fifty thousand refugees remain stateless, given no permission to work or move, and face mass deportation. The Lebanese government should think about it now more seriously, those Palestinians have been there for generations and they are not even treated equally, it's time to give those people more rights and a better life, wasn't it enough for those people to become refugees for more than 59 years. I’m not saying that all Palestinians there are angels or good people, there are of course some bad people there but have you thought of why would they become bad as anywhere else? The situation they are living under is not something you wish for another free human being.
What about those refugee camps? I really want to advise you all to do some research about this and find out how bad the situation in those camps. 
I was shocked to know that those refugees are not allowed to bring in any cement inside the camp, which meant that they are not allowed to build or expand their houses. People who are in charge of the country didn't notice that as time is passing by, people are increasing in number, and when the place you are staying in which is already so small will need eventually to be expanded. Beside that, all of those refugee camps are surrounded by army which made it look to me as if they are surrounding criminals. I was really impressed when I got the chance to talk to people from the camp because those people were really educated but they are never given the true opportunity.
The reason that influenced me to write this article was because I saw a group created on Facebook, which is a social networking website. So I was really shocked and sad to see that some Lebanese people attacking the Palestinians by creating those groups, and demanding that all Palestinians should be kicked out of Lebanon, it is like those Palestinians can go somewhere else!! Even also I read that some of them wishing for Palestinians to be killed by the Lebanese and Israeli army, can you believe that? I don't want to remind anyone that last summer this Israeli army had a war again with Lebanon and killed more than 1000 civilian and injured over 4000, how would those people stand with this army. I think things are going back to as 1982 when the Lebanese Kataeb party with the Israeli Defense Forces had killed more than 3000 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, so are those Lebanese willing to see Lebanon back in the civil war??
At the end, what I want to say about this whole situation is simple. I really hope that the Lebanese army will be able to stop this terrorist organization, Fath al-Islam, but at the same time not to attack and kill any of the Palestinian civilian refugees. Also, as I mentioned earlier it's time now for the Lebanese government to think more seriously of treating the Palestinian refugees in a fairer way. And for those Lebanese haters, STOP what you are doing and try to unite, because if you didn’t this will cause more internal problems for our lovely country and I don't think anyone want to see Lebanon having another civil war. I'm pretty sure that even true Lebanese people don't respect what are those haters doing. Finally, I hope things will get better in Lebanon and end up the entire political struggle in this lovely and nice country.
