Another beautiful wall

In all of his statements regarding illegal immigrants in the United States, President-elect Donald Trump mentioned his intention to build “a big, beautiful wall” separating his country from Mexico, the main source of immigrants who apparently bring crime and chaos with them, according to the discourse popularly peddled from Scandinavia to Lebanon.

In Lebanon, they’ve started building another “beautiful wall” surrounding the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp “for security purposes”. The first photos of the wall makes one think there’s been a mistake because the Lebanese wall looks very much like the Israeli wall separating Palestinian territories from the areas seized by settlers in the occupied West Bank. Perhaps the structural similarities between the two walls is the least significant element, as the Lebanese architects may have been inspired by the general look of the Israeli wall and distribution of towers. However, the question posed by the trapping of tens of thousands of Palestinians in a tightly closed circle in this manner goes deeper than merely its structure.

There is very little information on the wall, to the extent that the positions of the Palestinian faction leaders in the camp regarding it are inconsistent, as some say they had previous knowledge of the wall and coordinated in this regard with Lebanese authorities, while others insist on their complete surprise to see construction workers and their equipment start building the wall and digging deep foundations into the ground in order to prevent the digging of tunnels for Palestinians to smuggle wanted individuals, weapons and the like.

I will highlight the discussion regarding the humanitarian, security and political consequences of the construction of the wall. This discussion should have taken place among the camp inhabitants and those deciding to erect the wall around them before the first stone was set in place. Now, what we are concerned with is how the decision to build the wall was taken, who ordered its construction and the legal jurisdiction they have to take such an important measure.

Read: Hamas calls on Lebanon to stop building wall around refugee camp

In truth, we must say that the limits of the mandate granted by the government to the Lebanese army to deal with the inhabitants of Palestinian camps is unclear. There are large grey areas regarding which are sovereignty issues that only the government should make decisions regarding, and those which are security issues that should be handled by the army.

What really causes frustration is the incomprehensible and unacceptable intermingling between political and procedural affairs in some countries; between maintaining security and humiliating refugees who have no one to advocate for them after the demise of their cause, authority and factions.

Needless to say, the use of Palestinian refugees as a scarecrow during Syrian tutelage over Lebanon between 1990 and 2005 by the Assad regime has caused them to be accused as a source of disturbance, terrorism and violence. This policy continued even after the Syrian withdrawal, as the security situation in the refugee camps was dealt with based on the requirements and needs of the concerned parties, as evidenced in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in 2007, the site of brutal violence.

All of this falls into multiple contexts, including the insistence on pressuring refugees amid the chaos of the decision making mechanism used by the Lebanese government and the escalation of racist disputes against anyone different. For example, Syrian refugees, both collectively and individually, are subject to regular harassment campaigns that receive little media coverage, giving it a “national politics” character. This is also met with popular and racist international waves of wall-building around the US, Europe, and settlements in the occupied West Bank settlements, amid campaigns promoting “beautiful walls” necessary for the security of those threatened by the terror of those trapped in the camps.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.