It has been 60 years since the nakba and 41 years since the Palestinians were driven out of the West Bank and Jerusalem; it has been 26 years since the PLO was defeated in Lebanon, 20 years since Yasser Arafat declared the creation of the Palestinian State at the Palestinian National Congress in Algiers, and 15 years since he signed the Oslo Peace Accords at the White House. But nothing has changed for the Palestinians living in Syria.
A few years back, I visited the Sbeineh camp for Palestinian refugees located 14km south of Damascus. I asked one of the children, born long after the events mentioned above: “Where are you from?” He innocently replied, “From here!” He waved his hands and pointed to the miserable camp around him. He was 7 and thought that this camp was his nation — his home. This was the result of being a fourth-generation refugee. The young boy knew no other home than the camp.
When the “right of return” was being championed by Yasser Arafat, I tested the pulse of Palestinian friends living in Syria. Would they go back?
Those who remembered pre-1948 Palestine, or what was once Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem and the West Bank (prior to 1967), were completely convinced that they were going to return. If not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, probably in the near future — but some time within their lifetime.
They were still Palestinian nationalists to the bone, inspired by towering Palestinian figures such as George Habash of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Fateh commander Abu Jihad (Khalil Al Wazir) and Yasser Arafat. They still spoke with a heavy Palestinian accent and still adorned their homes with images of the Dome of the Rock and portraits of Arafat.
A younger generation, those born after 1967, were equally committed to the “liberation” of Palestine but introduced themselves as “Palestinian-Syrians”. A few words here and there revealed a slight Palestinian accent but apart from that, they spoke Syrian. They had gone to Syrian schools, befriended Syrians all their lives and married into Syrian families. When asked if they would return to Palestine, if the “right of return” was ever granted, they hesitated a moment, knowing that their reply was going to be politically incorrect.
They then confessed: “We would go back for visits, and, maybe, buy a summer home in Haifa for example, but Syria has become our home. We have friends, family and business in Syria. It would be madness to return to the unknown after we have established ourselves, at this stage in our life, here in Damascus.”
The detachment becomes even stronger for those born from the late 1980s onwards. Palestine to them is a myth — a wonderland that they hear about from their grandparents and which they read about in books and see on TV. They never knew it and are convinced — by accumulation of events and time — that they never will.
This is when things become dangerous. No matter how hard these young Palestinians try (they are now in college or have just entered the Syrian workforce) they will never be treated as full-fledged Syrians. Neither society nor the government sees them as such, although they identify themselves as “originally Palestinian”, and speak with a heavy Damascene accent.
They still do not hold a Syrian passport, cannot get a visa to travel anywhere and cannot own property in Syria unless they are married (and even then it is only with special permission and strictly “no more than one house”). They still do not serve in the Syrian Army (although they pay taxes to its government), cannot hold a public post and cannot vote in any election.
According to state records, they are Palestinians “living temporarily” in Syria. A Palestinian man married to a Syrian woman cannot get Syrian nationality, and his children, although half-Syrian, and born and raised in Damascus, are treated legally as Palestinians.
All three generations, however, have one thing in common — they lack real leadership. For political reasons, they continue to identify themselves as Fateh or Hamas, but in reality, realise (because they have the luxury of watching events in the Occupied Territories from afar) that they no longer have a leader — a role model to look up to.
That ended when Arafat died in 2004 and Palestinians have been unable to produce another credible leader. “The only person I trust” said a young Palestinian, “is Marwan Barghouti, and he is in jail! The rest, Arafat and his generation, are all dead!”
Mahmoud Abbas is president, the Palestinian-Syrians argue, not leader. The same applies to Esmail Haniyya. Arafat was a man who could take decisions and bear the consequences. This seems to be a recurring statement from Palestinians living in Syria.
He would say: “Only this hand (waving his right hand), can sign a peace treaty with Israel!” If Abu Mazen decides to make concessions to Israel and signs a flawed peace treaty, he would almost certainly by killed by an extremist Palestinian. Precisely by his death, Arafat has marked the “red lines” of Palestinian politics.
Arafat continues to rule and dominate Palestinian politics — and camps — from the grave. As Uri Avnery, the Israeli peace activist and a friend of Arafat once wrote: “If you are a Palestinian in Jenin with a rifle and you hear their names (Abu Mazen and Fateh), your reaction is: ‘Who are those guys anyway? Who are they to tell me what to do?’ Their authority will be superficial.”
That also applies to those Palestinians living in Syria. A walk through the Palestinian camps throughout Syria reveals a multitude of posters, Arafat, Ahmad Yassin, Abdul Aziz Rantisi, Abu Jihad, but no Mahmoud Abbas and no Ismail Haniyya. While all the post-Arafat leaders of Palestine get around in black-tinted automobiles and are always surrounded by heavy security, Arafat always showed up with the masses.
While they wear Western suits and are always neat and clean-shaven, looking like leaders of Switzerland or Norway, Yasser Arafat had the looks of a resistance leader. Scruffy, always in khaki military uniform, and always with a revolver buckled on his side, he was the perfect mirror of his people’s image of revolution and resistance.
Many Palestinians living in the Syrian camps still “look” and “sound” like Arafat. When he was based in Damascus during the 1970s, Arafat used to have lunch with his troops in their barracks, sleep in their camps and spend quality time with them. He used to join them at their weddings, funerals and daily life.
During his interviews, he let his aides interrupt him, help him with ideas and even correct his English. Had a presidential aide done that in Baghdad, Saddam Hussain would have had him shot.
Very informal, Arafat liked to grab his guests by the hand, to make them feel welcome, pat them on the shoulder, kiss them, treat them with great courtesy and, often, feed them with his own hands.
“It’s damned difficult to leave Arafat without, literally, having eaten out of his hand,” remarked one British diplomat. “Can you imagine Hosni Mubarak or King Abdullah doing that?”
Oslo restored Palestine to the map of the world, although it was never popular among Palestinians in Syria. Maybe it was not historic Palestine but it was Palestine nevertheless.
The Palestinians, who for long could not travel and had to wait for hours of cross-examination at airports, were issued local Palestinian National Authority passports, and could now fly from their own Palestinian airport in Gaza.
They earned a home to live in, a civil service to join, a police force to bring order to their lives, a government to resort to and a leader to follow.
Now, the Palestinians, thanks to Arafat, had a parliament, a constitution, an independent judiciary, a social security programme, along with their own schools and national universities.
“But what good is all of that,” remarked one elderly Palestinian, “if we never got the right of return?” Those living inside Palestine did get bits — small bits, tiny bits — of statehood. But for us, who live with our Syrian brothers, things are no different from when we first got here, as 30,000 Palestinians, in 1948!”
Dr Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
