Progress! Lebanon Gives Palestinians The Right To Enter Professions They Won't Be Able To Join

This is an important and basic step towards improving the humanitarian conditions of the refugees. It does not have any political effects because the Lebanese unanimously agree on the Palestinians right of return and reject naturalisation.
Hassan Fadlallah, a Lebanese lawmaker

How do you say Catch 22 in Arabic?
Aljazeera is claiming that Palestinians in Lebanon gain rights, but it is unclear exactly how:

The Lebanese government has granted some 400,000 Palestinians living in the country the right to work in professions they had been banned from for decades.

Human rights groups welcomed Tuesday's parliamentary vote as a step forward but said the bill still fell short of what is needed.

Under the new bill, Palestinians still cannot own property and are not eligible for social security or health insurance benefits.

Because they will be treated as foreign workers, they are also still barred from certain occupations that the country's laws allow only Lebanese to hold.

No reciprocity

Being essentially stateless also means further hardships for Palestinians.

Gaining entry as a foreigner into prestigious jobs in Lebanon such as law, medicine and engineering requires the prospective employee to belong to the relevant professional society, most of which require the employee's home country to reciprocate.

For a Palestinian, there is no home country.

"If you're a Palestinian born and raised in Lebanon and your dream is to become a doctor, you're out of luck", Nadim Houry, the Beirut director of Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press news agency.

The article implies that that the Lebanese government has now granted Palestinian Arabs the right to work in professions that they will be unable to enter. That impression is strengthened by the comment by Fadlallah that the new law actually has no legal impact and that the government wants them to leave anyway.

The AP version of the story holds out more hope:

Ali Hamdan, an aide to Lebanon's parliament speaker, said Tuesday's vote will legalize much of the work that many Palestinians already are doing as well as open up positions in fields such as insurance and banking.

"For the first time, Lebanon, which is a small country, is trying to solve a historic crisis for the Palestinian refugees," Hamdan told The Associated Press.

Lou Noleum, who posted the story on Lucianne, had an interesting comment:

This is the story I heard on the BBC this morning. The majority of Lebanese are freaking over this "blanket amnesty," according to the Beeb. A lot of parallels with our own situation with illegal Mexicans.

The amnesty aspect derives from the history of Palestinian Arabs who fled to Lebanon with Arafat from Jordan following Black September and through their attacks on Israel, precipitated the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon.

In any case, with the renewed resentment, things are unlikely to settle down in the short term.

Technorati Tag: Lebanon.