Live From Nahr El Bared









Skyping with Director Sandra Madi





6 Responses to “Live From Nahr El Bared”
  1. amany says:

    Beautiful Testimony, powerful narrative – in support always, Amany

  2. I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for this article, to be honest with you. I enjoyed your writing, though, very understandable and powerful. Thanks for spreading knowledge.

  3. adelnehmeh says:

    The palestenians (refugees) living in Lebanon definitely live under hte most inhumane and unfair conditions. No infrastructure, no proper development, barely any electricity, no right to work, no passport…..

    One has to look beyond the nationality and the history of the existence of the palestenians in Lebanon and simply put one’s self in their shoes. Is that a decent living?

    All these reason,s and much more, drive palestenians residing in the refugee camps, to seek sources of funding that may be fundamentalist in their nature which makes those camps harbor terrorist and religiously fundamentalist groups.

    How to seperate betwen the peaceful residents and the militants inside the camp? This is the question. The army cannot simply feel with the palestenians and diregard the illegal weaponry coming out. The army cannot simply let a guy with no papers on his motorcycle just go back home and fetch his papers. The palestenians might need to act against the stereotype and avoid hostile reactions.

    It is definitely a complicated situation, where the palestenians, after losing their homeland, end up mistreated in thier host coutnries but to put it simply as if the refugee camps are treated unfairly is a simplification of the true issue here…

    • Adel, first of all thank you for reading and commenting on this post, it’s important that we talk about this issue, especially in light with the news black out currently happening on Nahr El Bared.
      To answer to your claim pertaining to the Nahr El Bared war between the Fateh el Islam and the Lebanese Army: it was proven that the vast majority of the Fateh el Islam faction was not composed of Palestinians, but rather, of a myriad of nationalities. However, the conlfict was used by the media to fuel the already ever present racism against Palestinians. Besides, the Army has a responsibility under the IV Geneva Conventions to protect civilians in times of conflict and to only wage war against miltary targets. In the present case, civilian homes were raided and looted, as shown in various documentaries, including Sandra Madi’s, civilians were counted amongst the casualties and the whole camp was destroyed, violating the principles of protection of civilians and proportionality
      As for the recent events, what is wrong with letting a young man on a motorcycle go home to fetch his ID? Do you carry all your papers with you every time you step out of your house? The Palestinians of Nahr el Bared are asking for thourough investigations with regards to the deaths: this is their basic human right. They’re also asking for the end of the military rule they’re living under: why should they keep paying for something they had little to do with in the first place?
      Lebanon was one of the key States that helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948: how about we uphold what we helped create?

      • adelnehmeh says:

        As I said in my previous post, no human being should be treated and “hosted” the way the Palestenians are hosted in Lebanon. I refer from using the word refugees since a vast majority of them have been born here and this is their homeland….

        Going back to the topic, it may well be that the majority of the Fatih Al Islam were not palestenians, and I am aware of that fact, but it obvious where they decided to take their base and for what reasons. I am not blaming the palestenians for the actions of that fundamentalist organization, but they are balmed fro harboring them and providing a hotbed for their prosperation. And here, we have to seperate between the Palestenian people and the militias existing and controlling the power in the refugee camps.

        We cannot deny the fact that the palestenian camps were and still are hotbeds for illegal arms and weapons, something that unfortunately the average palestenian residing in the cmap suffers from, unjustly. But this is the case with any other group, anywhere in the world. Sunni civilians are targeted in areas where Sunni miltias exist, Christians were targeted in areas where Christian militias existed and the whole south is targeted and civilians are killed by Israel because of the resistance in the south and people harboring the resistance.

        There is no reason for not improving the living conditions of the Palestenians in the camps.
        There is no reason for not providing them with their basic human rights.
        There is no reason for no formal and just investigation in the unjust killings of palestenians.

        On the other side, there is no reason for the persistence of illegal arms and weapons in the camps.
        On the other side, there is no justified reason for hostility against the Lebanese army who is banned from entering the camps in the first place.

        I hope it is clear that I am differentiating between the average palestenian residing in the camps and the militant palestenians and palestenian factions. Because of the latter, the former is suffering.

Check out what others are saying...

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: