Will peace deliver justice to Lebanese exiled in Israel?

Source: Nida Al Watan – Tony Attieh

For 26 years, the issue of Lebanese exiles to Israel has remained the most complex case in modern Lebanese history. This wound, still bleeding in the conscience of those families, also represents a political and humanitarian stain on the Lebanese state, or rather on the successive authorities that failed to address the matter objectively and with an untainted memory, free from the selectivity and distortions resulting from the dominance of the “Resistance Axis,” which appointed itself both adversary and judge, imposing its ideological perspective on the standards of treason and patriotism.

Therefore, this issue cannot be approached merely as a purely legal or humanitarian matter detached from its historical context. True, it emerged after the withdrawal of the Israeli army and the flight of members of the “South Lebanon Army” and their families into Israel in 2000; yet in essence, it is only one chapter of the Lebanese Civil War, a war that some sought to narrate in only one direction, where facts were erased to market a single narrative portraying one side as “honorable patriots” and the other as “traitors and collaborators.” The media and intellectual machinery affiliated with the Resistance deliberately played a role in falsifying collective memory.

Among the flawed methodologies was the official classification that came to dominate the state’s doctrine regarding who constituted an enemy and who constituted a friend; a classification not based on national standards. In principle, the categorization of enemies and allies should stem from supreme national interest, which is how most normal countries operate, in accordance with the sound political principle in international relations: “There are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends.”

As a manifestation of this defect, Israel alone was considered the enemy, while the Lebanese state was forced to regard the Assad regime, and later Iran, as friends; despite the fact that their practices toward Lebanon and the Lebanese, through domination and occupation, were far harsher. Both viewed this country as merely an “arena” or part of their grand projects, and neither recognized Lebanon as an independent sovereign entity. They seized control over the levers of governance and became deeply involved in fueling internal war.

Based on this distortion of standards, the state adopted a one-sided narrative of the Lebanese war, through which it formulated the concepts of “treason” and “collaboration” to align with the agendas of those ideological dependencies. What is painful in this context is that the forces whose historical struggle was rooted in establishing the Lebanese entity and republic, and which culturally, politically, and ideologically believed in a sovereign and independent homeland owing allegiance to no other, found themselves accused of collaboration. Meanwhile, “patriotism” was attributed to all those who carried the banner of transnational causes (whether Palestinian, Syrian, or Iranian) despite the fact that they were the direct cause of the state’s disintegration and devastation up to the present day.

Who is the collaborator?

Nor can the issue of the exiles be analyzed without raising a fundamental question: What standard brands as hostile anyone who allied with Israel or sought its support after all options for defending their existence had been closed off, while granting a certificate of patriotism to those intellectually, financially, politically, and militarily subordinate to Iran? Which poses the greater danger to Lebanon: the one who allied with Israel out of necessity and existential interest, or the one who became ideologically subservient, in every sense of the word, to the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, which is the true source of danger, or to Baathist, Syrian nationalist, Nasserist, and leftist ideologies? Despite their ideological differences, all these currents share one thing in common: they do not believe in Lebanon and regard it as a historical mistake. Is fighting Israel the “baptism” that grants a Lebanese person a certificate of patriotism, while allegiance to the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” and before it the Assad regime, is exempt from the stigma of collaboration?

The analytical framework required to address the issue of the exiles necessitates returning to the parent issue: the emergence of the “South Lebanon Army,” an organization that included among its ranks popular segments from various Christian, Muslim, and Druze sects, with the striking paradox that Shiites constituted its numerical majority. Had this involvement been limited to Christians or Druze alone, being more detached from the “anti-Lebanese” ideologies that marked the past two centuries, the matter might perhaps have appeared explicable within a sectarian context. Yet the heavy participation of Sunnis and Shiites reflects the extent of oppression and injustice suffered by the people of the South during the era of “Fatahland” and the factions loyal to it.

The image of women and elders in Shiite villages scattering rice over the motorcades of Major Saad Haddad, while simultaneously raising pictures of the disappeared Imam Moussa al-Sadr, remains more eloquent than any explanation or book about that era. In this regard, residents recall how portraits of Imam al-Sadr were displayed after his disappearance in most villages of the border strip, Christian and Muslim alike, while a Shiite authority opposed to the “Resistance” told Nida Al Watan that, paradoxically, these images nearly disappeared during the era of the “Resistance’s” rule over the South and the border strip. He also recalls the “annual calendars” that spread among southern Christians and Muslims alike, bearing the phrase: “We all believe in the Imam’s return.”

From Hamza and Khanjar to Haddad

Reviewing historical paradoxes, one finds that the descendants of the bands of Sadiq Hamza and Adham Khanjar, who rejected “Greater Lebanon” in 1920 and demanded inclusion under King Faisal’s rule (28 years before the establishment of the State of Israel), were themselves the ones who accused opposing Shiites and Christian villages of “collaboration” with the French Mandate and Western colonialism. This led to the killing of dozens and the displacement of Christian villages, some of whose residents sought refuge in Safed, Haifa, and elsewhere. Persecution also targeted Shiite dignitaries, foremost among them the leader Kamel al-Asaad (the grandfather), who clashed with those groups in opposition to their wars against the idea of forming an independent homeland and in rejection of supporting the Syrian revolt at the time. References indicate that “a threatening message reached al-Asaad from the leadership of the Syrian revolt, demanding that he declare an explicit position rejecting inclusion in the soon-to-be-announced State of Greater Lebanon and insisting on keeping Jabal Amel within the Syrian axis.” How much yesterday resembles today.

From this perspective, the Shiite authority believes that Imam al-Sadr’s project aimed to transfer the Shiite environment from the ideology of the “Wadi al-Hujayr Conference” toward the realm of the state and the homeland. What is striking here is that when the South fell under the domination of Palestinian organizations and the subsequent persecution of the population, the sons and grandsons of those same people joined the ranks of the “Southern Army.” Those who had once opposed the birth of Lebanon found themselves after 1975 defending its survival against the Palestinian “alternative homeland” project, after realizing, as some reportedly said, the enormity of the historical mistake committed against Lebanon: “Had the Wadi al-Hujayr project succeeded and had we merged with the surrounding region, we would today be completely crushed.”

Historical events thus prove that the accusation of “collaboration” was not tied to the existence of Israel or to the emergence of Resistance rhetoric afterward; rather, it was and still is used as a weapon against anyone who rejects projects opposed to the Lebanese entity.

Returning directly to the issue of those exiled to Israel, unofficial statistics indicate that around 4,000 southerners, mostly Christians and Shiites, remain there out of the 7,000 who entered Israeli territory during the 2000 withdrawal. They settled mainly in the areas of Haifa, Safed, Ma’alot, and Tiberias, that is, the areas closest to Lebanon, so as to remain in contact with their homeland, which rejected them simply because they defended their fate at a moment when everyone abandoned them. Another portion emigrated to third countries such as Germany, France, Australia, Canada, and the United States, while others returned to Lebanon in stages and underwent trials and imprisonment.

Beyond general amnesty

On 18 November 2011, the Lebanese Parliament passed Law No. 194 aimed at addressing the situation of Lebanese refugees in Israel, thereby moving beyond the logic of collective condemnation. The law approached the issue as a humanitarian and national crisis produced by the exceptional circumstances of the year 2000. Although the text acknowledged that the refuge was motivated by fear of retaliation or prior association with the “South Lebanon Army,” it also highlighted the tragedy of entire families who found themselves in a state of legal and social estrangement. If the general amnesty law currently under discussion today aims to address the situations of various Lebanese groups, then it is only natural that Lebanese residing in Israel should also be included within this framework, like others who may benefit from the amnesty. The principle of equality before the law, enshrined in Lebanese legislation, requires that no group be excluded from comprehensive legal treatment, especially when their situations stem from similar exceptional circumstances.

Today, with the balance of power shifting in favor of the Lebanese state and its gradual emancipation from the grip of the “Resistance” concepts, and with the prospect of direct negotiations and peace processes emerging, the question remains: Will the state seize this moment to undertake an objective reassessment of this file and turn the page on the issue of “collaboration”? Will the state free itself from the policy of double standards and end the era of “one collaborator treated with ghee and another with oil”? And beyond demanding a “general amnesty,” will it possess the courage to apologize to these people for the injustice and marginalization they endured, and for the unfair moral trials that tarnished their belonging and cast doubt on their patriotism; instead of appeasing groups that see Lebanon as nothing more than an open arena?