Counterpunch
June 1, 2007

Franklin Lamb

Bibnin Akkar, Lebanon opposite Nahr al-Bared Palestinian Camp

With fighting raging this June 1, 2007, humid afternoon, less than 200 yards from the front line Lebanese army position, reporters huddled behind cinder block walls in Bibnin Akkar, speculate that the Army will shortly enter deeply into Nahr al-Bared unless repelled . The smell of rotting corpses which have not been able to be retrieved this past week are pungent across the Tripoli-Syria road as more than 80 Lebanese army Tanks and APC's line up along the road, gun pointing into Nahr al-Bared. There appear about one thousand nervous Lebanese troops behind cover awaiting orders at 3:30 pm local time as their leaders assess the situation.

Nearly two weeks into the fighting at Nahr al-Bared (Cold River) Palestinian Refugee Camp) across the Tripoli-Syria highway, from the beautiful Sunni Lebanese mountainside village of Bignin Akkar, the fog may be lifting a bit allowing for some tentative findings concerning the short term political consequences of what happened here.

Interviews and visits with the factions involved, including Fatah al-Islam, its spokesperson Abu Salem, its leader, Shaker al-Absi, and no fewer than 15 (!) different Palestinian resistance and liberation groups which operate in Nahr al-Bared with branches in its sister camp, Badawi, offer some insight into the political winners and losers to date. .

Given the 'score card' political mentality in most contemporary societies, including Lebanon, the bookmakers and political junkies have been busy handicapping.

The situation on the ground could change profoundly and with lighting speed. Indeed on the afternoon of June 1, 2007 intense fighting is underway. If the Army is not beaten back, there is reason to believe it will invade the whole camp. Given events as of this afternoon, conditions, one current political assessment looks something like this:

Current Winners in the conflict at Nahr al-Bared:

Nobody won in this conflict in Lebanon with the exception of Al Qaeda and their newly anchored Al Qaeda in Lebanon affiliates, which includes Fatah al-Islam. Despite the political posturing and calls from the Bush administration and the majority in the Government of Lebanon including the Prime Minister, to "destroy the terrorists" and "drive them from the camps" neither is likely to occur, anytime soon, if at all. Salafism is rising in Lebanon, but it is currently a relatively small, if virulent, phenomenon.

FAL's leader, Shaker al-Absi, is a short term winner as of this afternoon. He has garnered support among Salafist fundamentalist Muslims and his commitment to liberate Palestine resonates across Lebanon and the Middle East collecting sympathy and cash. Al-Absi is holding firm to his position of FAL's three no's: No surrender, no retreat to his previously base within Nahr al Bared, and no dismantling of Fatah al-Islam.

If the army fails this afternoon, Fatah al-Islam will likely not be expelled from Nahr al-Bared anytime soon. Each passing hour it grows in strength within Bared Camp and digs in more deeply as it strips the large grocery stores and warehouses of supplies. Shaker al-Absi will likely not be arrested anytime soon as part of a tacit agreement to defuse the situation and keep it from spreading to the other 11 main Palestinian camps. Absi's fate is more likely to be two assassin's bullets to the head sometime in the intermediate future as punishment for his crimes against the Army and Lebanon and to silence him.

Caveat: The 6/2/07 passage of UN resolution 1757 establishing the Hariri Tribunal, which has Future Movement partisans, dressed in white caps and T-shirts with Rafik's image in the streets of Beirut this afternoon- handing out candy and white roses in celebration, may change things. This Tribunal 'victory' is leading some in the government to increase pressure on the army to enter the camps thereby adding to the gains of the establishment of the Tribunal by another victory, this time in Nahr al-Bared. There is a risk that the armies' entrance could ignite Lebanon.

Losers:

The Palestinian refugees bombed and forced to leave their homes in Nahr al-Bared. By far the greatest losers are the Palestinian Refugees from Nahr al-Bared who once again have been violently uprooted. Leaving their homes with very little or nothing, they are destitute and desperate. More than 23,000 of them jammed into previously overcrowded Camps, as many as 60 to a school room in some cases and quickly wearing out their welcome and longing to return home. In Badawi, their arrival nearly doubled the population from 18,000 to more than 34,000. Badawi children lost most of their school rooms to the arrivals and the School year has been effectively canceled.

The crowded conditions are creating severe social tensions. On Monday May 28, 2007, about 200 refugees, desperate to return to their homes in Bared were stopped by the Lebanese army and forced to return to Badawi. Despite their near panic situation, Palestinians will not be returning home to Bared anytime soon, if at all. The Government of Lebanon cannot politically allow their return, regardless of what may be little risk to them from Fatah al-Islam, with whom they have lived peacefully for nearly eight months.

The Lebanese Army. Losing to date 35, as of this morning, of its heroic comrades, the army suffered a tremendous blow just as it was starting to get organized, including a bloody ambush on May 21, 2007. Last night it lost another to a sniper's bullet. While a loser in this conflict to date and with much anger leveled at it for its indiscriminate shelling of Camp civilians during the first two days of the conflict, the Army is also a winner in the sense that its has emerged to date as the subject of much love from the hearts of its countrymen. Support signaled from all the confessions and virtually all politicians in Lebanon, from the Lebanese forces to Hezbollah. They army disarmed at least one private militia that was sniping into Bared trying to provoke the Army into entering the Camp. The army is professionally manning checkpoints around Lebanon with dignity and courtesy.

The March 14th group and Parliamentary "majority" led by Saad Hariri and the Future Movement . Big losers short term. Their leadership naively gambled on a scheme hatched by US and Israeli neocons including Elliot Abrams and David Welch, and implemented by Dick Cheney and the Bush administration in cooperation with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and others. Following the death of Rafik Hariri, a plan was devised to create a US supported 'Sunni army of the North' to counter the "Shia army of the south". The scheme was seriously flawed from the start for many reasons including the fact that it required igniting a civil war between Lebanon's Muslims and Christians, between Sunni and Shia, between Palestinians and Lebanese, between the Salafists and secular Sunni. The plan no doubt looked delicious at sundry offices and 'think thanks" in Washington and Tel Aviv but so far, despite lighting matches, no civil war has inflamed Lebanon. Nor is one likely to in the short term. With the collapse of this scheme, Saad Hariri and Fuad Siniora are licking their wounds and come off with a modicum of public sympathy because they appear to be decent fellows who were duped by George W. Bush into provoking Syria. Bush, according to Robert Fisk, stated recently that he (Bush) "was going to hang Bashar Assad (Syria's President), by his balls". This mornings joke in Hamra is 'we'll see who ends up hanging who by what fairly shortly, given events in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The Sunni secular community represented by Prime Minister Siniora and Saad Hariri appear to some political handicappers to be modest long term winners because they are not shown to have taken up arms in the current conflict. Moreover, with their calls for "fighting terrorists" and 'war on terrorism' speeches they are seen to have supported the Bush Administrations crusade which will reap benefits from Washington.

Viewed less charitably are the Lebanese Forces' Samir Geagea and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Both have been beating their chests urging the Army to enter into Nahr al-Bared "and rout the criminals and terrorists", despite the fact that even middle school children in Lebanon realize that such a move could well ignite all the Palestinians camps and a number of the confessions. So shrill has the duo's call been for the army "to do its national duty", that one Army officer discussing events in the camps with journalists this past Wednesday, said:

"Yes, we have heard their statements too often. Please give them a message from me. The army of the Republic of Lebanon will enter the camps. But only if they lead the charge and enter first. We will watch them to go into Nahr al-Bared 100 meters and wait for their report. If we hear from them again we will follow them and perform our national duty. They will have performed theirs!" In the last 24 hours Geagea and Jumblatt have been cooling their gung ho rhetoric and have stated that there may be no need to rush into Nahr al-Bared.

A potential political, but probably not religious loser, is the Supreme Sunni Grand Mufti Mohammed Kabbani if it is proven that he, as accused by some, acting on orders of the Future Movement leadership arranged as many as 250 "religious scholar visas" from the Government of Lebanon for devout persons from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The accusation is that these 'visas' facilitated the 'legal' entrance into Lebanon over the past nine months of Al Qaeda fighters who joined Fatah al-Islam. This charge has not been proven and awaits a declaration by the Grand Mufti, himself a Salifist.

The Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon confirmed on 5/30/07 that 4 Saudi members of Fatah el Islam inside Nahr al-Bared who were killed "are indeed members of Al Qaeda" Others from FAL's ranks inside the Camp are believed to include: Tunisians, Egyptians, Sudanese, Somalis, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Algerians, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis. Also arrested and charged with terrorism on 5/30/07 were 20 alleged Fatah al-Islam members, 18 of whom were Lebanese, 2 Saudis, and one Yemeni.

This declaration by the Saudi emissary Abdul Aziz Khoja, was a source of major embarrassment to the March 14 leadership, as it had been quick to accuse Syria and say that the fighters were "Syrian mukhabarat leftovers of Palestinian origin. The days ahead may uncover the role that the Jordanians and Saudis played in scuttling attempts by Lebanese authorities to nip FAL and other Salafi movements, in the bud, if that was ever a realistic objective.

Questions raised include why Jordan didn't request that Lebanon send them Saker al-Absi who was working in Sabra-Shatilla running a charity and organizing civil defense efforts during Israel's recent attack on Lebanon, given that Jordan had issued a death warrant for Al-Absi following his conviction in the murder of the American diplomat Foley.

Significant losers also include the Bush administration whose project has been fairly widely exposed. Possible personal losers may be anyone including David Welch, Eliot Abrams, Dick Cheney et al. shown to have violated US federal law, including, but not limited to, several provisions of the US Patriot Act, to wit: providing material support for terrorists and violating title III, "International Money Laundering". No evidence exists of exculpatory intent on the part of the Welch club to protect the people of the US, UK, or Europe "from an imminent and certain catastrophic danger."
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Welch Club activities in Lebanon offer further evidence of the pathos and disintegration of the Bush administration Middle East policy. On one hand, supporting Sunni terrorist cells with ideological ties to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, supporting Shia factions in Iraq. In addition green lighting with US taxpayer money at the rate of $ 15.1 million dollars a day- for a total of more than $ 5.7 Billion every year-- the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, without even safeguarding beforehand thousands of American citizens in Beirut and Tyre and across the South of Lebanon. Finally, offering only token assistance to Lebanon to help with the cost of rebuilding the country ravaged by American bombs.
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Franklin P. Lamb, PhD
American University of Beirut
Room: 335 Kerr Hall
Beirut Mobile: +961-70-164-648
fplamb@gmail.com
Alternative Email address:
fl01@aub.edu.lb