Yarmouk Camp

It is indubitable that the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria is under siege by the troops of the Syrian regime; it is also indubitable that the Syrian rebels find it easy to use the camp as a staging ground for the continually-postponed attack on Damascus. Both sides have shown disregard for the lives of the Palestinians inside the camp. But then again, both sides in Syria have shown disregard for the lives of ordinary Syrians, and it isn’t surprising that they would be disregarding the lives of the Palestinians inside the camp.

All Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East have suffered from the attacks by Israel and also by the host regimes in which the refugees have sought refuge after their expulsion from their homeland. Some would argue that the legal status of the Palestinians in Syria is better than that of the refugees in Lebanon, and this is true, but official (and also unofficial) Lebanese treatment of the Palestinians historically has been Zionist in rhetoric and practice. And it is to be remembered that Lebanon tried to emulate the Jordanian regime’s Black September massacres on behalf of Israel, but the attempt failed miserably in 1973, at which the then-president of Lebanon, Suleiman Franjieh, basically opened the depots of the Lebanese army and offered their contents to the right-wing fascistic militias of Lebanon.

But the Baathist regime, while providing a decent legal status for Palestinians in Syria, which allowed them to serve in a number of occupations denied to them in other neighboring countries, kept the camps under very tight control. From the late 1960s, when as-Saiqah (Thunderbolt) militia was founded, the Syrian regime ruled the Palestinians in the camp through an arm of the Syrian regime. And when the fortunes of as-Saiqah declined, especially after the assassination in Nice of its leader, Zuhayr Muhsin, the role of the enforcer in the camp fell on the shoulders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which has been loyal to the Syrian regime since 1977.

The Syrian regime (under Hafez al-Assad in particular) refused to respect the political wishes of the Palestinians. He detested Yasser Arafat (and the detestation was mutual) and could not accept that Fatah was the largest political organization among the Palestinians. Assad (just like the Egyptian and Iraqi and Saudi and Jordanian regimes over the years) wanted to tell the Palestinians who their leaders should be (and the selections by the Syrian regime were quite unpopular by the standards of the Palestinian people, just as the Jordanian regime’s selections were unpopular).

But this recent round of fighting in and around the camp has yet again revealed that Arab regimes don’t respect the suffering of the Palestinian people. Just as the cowardly Lebanese army, which has a history of inaction vis-à-vis repeated Israeli aggression in Lebanon, savagely declared war on the Nahr al-Bared camp due to the presence of the small gang of Fatah al-Islam, the Syrian regime is showing no mercy in its war on Yarmouk. Similarly, the Syrian armed opposition groups (loyal to enemies of the Palestinian people in the region) are willing to use the Palestinian camps and its residents as hostages in their fight against the regime. By most accounts, the armed groups shot at aid convoys days ago because they did not approve the arrival of food shipment to the residents, just as the Syrian regime delayed the arrival of the convoy and offered a least safe route to the camp.
There can be a simple solution to Yarmouk. The Syrian civil war is most likely to continue for years to come; there is no end in sight and the negotiations in Switzerland are part of superpower games that the Syrian people have no control over. But there should be certain principles observed by all governments and militias in Syria and beyond: 1) that Palestinian camps should not be used as an arena for armed conflict by any side; 2) that camp residents should be insulated from wars and conflicts around them; 3) no Arab regime should by force try to impose on the Palestinian people an organization or a militia not of their choosing; 4) armed groups should not hide in the camp and should not use the residents as hostages or human shields; 5) the practice of imposing siege on a camp should be left to the Zionist entity only, and any Arab side that emulates Zionist practices against Palestinians.

Of course, what adds to the agony of the Yarmouk camp is the chorus of Zionists who feign concern for the Palestinian people. It is as hypocritical as the Saudi media pretending to care for the Palestinians. The suffering of the Palestinians should be treated as a collective Arab responsibility, but the time when the Arab people pinned their hope on Arab regimes to help in that regard is long gone.

Dr. As’ad AbuKhalil is a Professor of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, a lecturer and the author of The Angry Arab News Service. He tweets @asadabukhalil.