Walkin' the Sabra and Shatila Casbah

As many of you now know, I skipped the second half of my Arabic class the other day to go pay a visit to the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in south Beirut. These camps are certainly worse than anything I've ever seen on the West Bank--which includes my stint at a refugee camp in Nablus, Palestine in the summer of 2007. Not to get too editorialized, but I think a big reason for this is that the international community has traditionally viewed the Palestinian problem as a West Bank and Gaza kind of issue. They forget that the Palestinian camps of the Levant are like tightly guarded prisons that have been subject to enormous campaigns from local governments to keep displaced Palestinians from being granted the rites of citizenship.

Leaving the glitzy streets of West Beirut for the hardened camps of south Beirut, it's no wonder why they say the next wave of intentional Jihadi terrorists will see these camps as an easy target. But don't take my word for it; come for a walk through the Sabra and Shatila Casbah:

(Click on any of these photos to make them larger.)

This was the entrance into the Sabra refugee camp. Notice the epic tangle of telephone and power lines above. To me, this is a perfect example of the kind of thing a normal government is tasked with doing: Arranging public utilities’ so that every time a house needs something from the grid, it can simply be hooked up to a larger network. No such organization exists in Sabra. A man I asked in the camp said it perfectly: "Ever since Yasser Arafat left for Tunis, the PLO has been in decline here. Now I see all factions as the same: self-motivated and out for their own interests."

While many people in these camps--like the man I just quoted--have lost their faith in traditional political parties, a whole new wave of people are turning their political rubric for legitimacy to armed resistance. In other words, who kicked the most Israeli ass, mostly in the 2006 War. The clear militancy in this picture is an example of this.

You’re going to have to click on this picture to really see what I am about to point out (so do it now). OK. First off, notice the situation on the street. Chaos; a clear sign of a lack on civil planning. This should be somewhat expected, however. Many of the camps older residents never thought they’d still be in Lebanon some sixty years after the creation of the state of Israel. Second, notice the portraits near the top of the frame of former PLO leader, Yasser Arafat and Hezbollah's assassinated commander, Imad Mughniyeh. Not exactly the mixture of Sunni/Shia, Lebanese/Palestinian figureheads that one might have seen during the Civil War. After a string of Israeli invasions, however, waves of southen Lebanese Shias flooded into these crowded camps. Today it's common to see these two men hung next to each other, as they are both regarded as "martyred fathers of resistance." Keep in mind that Arafat was a man of secular nationalism; while Mughniyeh was a hardened Shia Islamist, who gave his life serving Hezbollah. Different in approach, but champions of resistance nevertheless.

Here is another street corner in the Sabra refugee camp where you can see Arafat and Mughniyah together. Just around the corner from where these kids are walking is the haggard, half-collapsed PLO office.

This one is for al-Saleebi, AKA Abu Danger. The Popular Front for The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has some street credit in these camps. Though I don't know how much, I think they are part of a kaleidoscope of factions that fly their flags as "fighters of Israel." The PFLP was founded by Palestinian Christians, though no Christians are thought to live in Sabra or Shatila.

What is a post on anything “Palestine” these days without Hamas? Meet Sheikh Yassin, the founder of The Islamic Resistance Movements, and the cloaked man in the center of the poster. I like this picture because it shows that “someone” is doing some kind of work in the ally next to the Hamas poster. Still, who owns the tractor is ambiguous. My point? Let's just remember there is a seemingly eternal power struggle for control in these camps; and that Hamas has been giving the PLO a run for their money in the past few years. Perhaps Hamas is supporting this public works project to try and win over some of the population… Just a thought.

I never liked Samir Kuntar much. Perhaps it’s the allegation that he swift-boated into northern Israel and shot a bunch of kids in the late 70s. Regardless, it always bothered me that Hezbollah & Co. decided to use Kuntar’s story as admirable example of a brave man. To shorten the story, Hezbollah got him back as part of a deal with the Israelis just over a year ago, and instead of questioning Kuntar’s moral sanity and guilt for killing children in cold blood, he was, upon his release, given a heroes welcome. This always made me sick and I loathe his picture in places of poverty. This is the kind of political hero kids grow up with in these camps.

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In review of the past number of posts, let me just name a few local players who seem to have influence in the camps: Amal, Hezbollah, PLO, Fatah, PFLP, DFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Syrian Intel and on the outside, the Lebanese Army. While I'm sure I'm missing a few, there is "The other force in Lebanon," that has been left from this post. These al-Qaeda-like groups are not visible from the streets and my guess is that they are mostly suppressed and kept to living rooms within these camps.

So in conclusion to The Casbah’s flurry of posts on Sabra and Shatila, I have to say that this was an eye-opening experience that exposed a truly dire situation. While we often hear analysts in the media lash-out at the PLO, Hamas (whoever) for various reasons, we should understand that it is also in the interest of these groups to combat the rise of al-Qaeda in the camps. The next generation, simply, will not tolerate living like this and is currently vetting “other” solutions—however crazed they may seem.

On a human level, there was not a moment in Sabra or Shatila where I felt threatened. Most Palestinians understand that if you are foreigner you are there to give aid and report their situation to the world.

In essence, these underreported camps are an embarrassment to the human experience and they must be an integral factor to any solution regarding the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab conflict.

Let us not forget the camps in Lebanon.

'em kids of Sabra and Shatila

While I was waiting on a friend in the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon the other day, some curious kids decided to show off their favorite trick: Lighting a firecracker; yelling "Allah Akbar" (God is great); and then, dancing around like a bunch of baboons while saying it was all "Li' Ou'youn Abu Ammar" (For the eyes of Yasser Arafat).

Any thoughts on this?

The Father of Resistance

Don't really understand what's going on in Afghanistan? Simply want to better your understanding of counterinsurgency? Just want to hear a sharp six-minute spiel on the whole thing? Well, in a sort of "counter-payment" to our dear friend, Abu Muqawama, for pluggin' The Casbah on his site, I am highly suggesting that all you Casbahites checkout his interview with Charlie Rose. Worth your while for sure.

Click here to watch it.

Update: The Casbah received just under 200 hits yesterday! Whoa people, let's just remember what we started from here: A bored undergraduate armed with free time and a love for travel, history, politics, and the current events of the Middle East! More on the Palestinian camps of South Beirut tomorrow.

Update II: Hassan Nasrallah got kicked off Facebook yesterday. (I'm not sure who is unleashing a greater guffaw, my Saudi roommate or myself!)

Blogging the Sabra and Shatila Casbah: "When does a killing become an outrage?"

Perhaps the most famous Beirut-based journalist once soberly wrote:

"When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a massacre?..."

"But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly Christian militiamen - from which particular unit we were still unsure - but the Israelis were also guilty. If the Israelis had not taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance - the Israeli airforce had dropped all those flares to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila - and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps."

Can you guess who wrote this? Yes, Robert Fisk--the same guy whose old bar stool I sat on last night at the famous bar Beiruti bar, the Duke of Wellington.

"But wait Abu," you might say with a bit of confusion. "Why are you bringing up the Sabra and Shatila massacre? Like random?"

Today I was "lucky" enough to go with some friends to go visit the place that once held some of the most despicable atrocities in recent history. And while I am too tired to do a full post about it--and still need to prepare for my weekly NPR radio show--I just wanted to let everyone know that in the next few days The Casbah will have a feature on this largely forgotten suburb in South Beirut.

Just to give you an idea what the place looks like:

(This is the beginning of the Sabra camp. That second story building is supposedly where Ariel Sharon told the Lebanese Phlangeist militia to go into the camps and wreak havoc. The flag on the telephone pole--that you can hardly see--is of the Shia party Amal. These days, Amal is closely aligned with Hezbollah. The Shia moved into many parts of the Sunni Palestinian territory as a result of various Israeli invasions in the southern part of the country.)

(The picture speaks for its self: Two kids sifting through trash, looking to find something of worth. To me, this picture shows that the Palestinain/Shia Lebanese situation in Lebanon is much worse than anything on the West Bank these days. As for Gaza? I haven't a clue.)

Update: Though I don't necessarily agree with Sayyed Totten on some of his points, I do think he is right in saying that most of Lebanon is in worse shape than the West Bank. Take a read.

Update II: Click here to read an excellent piece that al-Jazeera has put together on the PLO in Lebanon.

NOT the PFLP-GC; rather it was al-Qaeda who shot those pesky rockets at Israel

After six months of waiting, we can now close the books on the three rockets that "someone" fired from South Lebanon during the January '09 Israeli-Gaza War. Patrick Galey, of The Daily Star, says here that it was an al-Qaeda group who has recently "claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks on Israel which threatened to shatter its fragile peace with Lebanon." (By "someone" he implies Fatah al-Islam?)

Interesting... This sounds like exactly the kind of threat that I warned about in my most recent article (linked in the previous post) on al-Qaeda in Lebanon. Lets just put it this way: The rise of Salafi-Jihadism within the largely Sunni Palestinian population in Lebanon is going to be a “game changing” phenomenon. It is in everyone's interest to try and find some kind of resolve to this solution before these hardcore Islamists find open ears in the overcrowded refugee camps of the Levant.

Keep in mind that at the time of the rocket fire, we at The Casbah reported that it was the PFLP-GC who fired the rockets (via NOW Lebanon and the PFLP-GC website). Well, let it now be known though the streets of this dusty old Casbah that we stand corrected.



UPDATE: OK, so I put in a bit of a rhetorical question above: "Fatah al-Islam," as being this unknown "al-Qaeda group who shot the rockets. I stand corrected, thanks to Virtually Islamic, a very cool blog I just learned about. Here it is:

...New Salafi Jihadi group in Lebanon criticizes Hizbullah 'Hypocrites' on Palestine issue, 24 Jul 09 "A video entitled "خرق الحصون ," "Breach of Forts/Strongholds" was released today by the Brigades of 'Abdullah 'Azzam (BAA), a Salafi jihadi group which claimed responsibility for a series of bombings at luxury resorts in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt in October 2004 and July 2005, as well as failed rocket attacks on U.S. Navy ships in the Jordanian Red Sea port city of Aqaba in August 2005 (more information HERE). The BAA, reputedly affiliated with the jihadi umbrella "al-Qa'ida in the Levant and Egypt," is named after the late Palestinian religious scholar and paramount jihadi ideologue, 'Abdullah 'Azzam, who played a major role in fundraising and recruiting for the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The fun is over: The rise of al-Qaeda in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon

In the past, a number of you Casbahites have commented that you enjoy this blogs "cutesy-jokey tone." Sure The Casbah tends to be light, fluffy and at times, an almost painful dose of smartassery; but it's also, in my opinion, the healthiest way to deal with the daily calamities of the Middle East. This has basically been my manifesto for this blog since day one. However, as some of you know, this smartastastic tone is not my sole profession. Drum roll please...

The following is my most recent publication on the rise of al-Qaeda in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. As I said, the fun is over...

The other force in Lebanon

These days it’s common to go to a lecture on the Arab-Israeli conflict and hear the speaker wishfully say: “If only Jimmy Carter could have resolved the whole issue then. Not only would some kind of suitable solution be in play, but the Palestinian nationalists would have been left in charge. This means no Hamas.”

This logic seems sound. Many in the Levant gave competing ideologies a second chance after Arab nationalists’ where humiliated in the 1967 War. In fact, Israel welcomed nonviolent Islamic cultural movements during this period—especially in the Gaza Strip—with hopes that it would weaken the PLO’s monopoly on power, and exempt them from providing for the Palestinian population. Over time, certainly given the chance from the inability and corruption of the PLO, the Palestinian Islamists were able to build enough support that they could even win an election.

The problem with this popularized version of history is that it is incomplete. Sure the Palestinian politics of today are bitterly divided into competing nationalist and Islamic factions; what isn’t so talked about, however, is a so-called “third force” has entered Palestinian political sphere. Lets call it the rise of Salafi-Jihadism.

While this new brand of Islamism is still relatively contained to Palestinian refugee camps outside of Israel and the Occupied Territories, the recently foiled plot in South Lebanon should send chills down the streets of Arab capitals.

Read the rest at Ya Libnan