How come the Lebanese army is slaughtering Palestinian refugees?

[NNN0LHI]

Anyone know whats going on here? Just turned my TV on and CNN is showing a refugee camps of more than 40,000 people being shot and blown up to smithereens by the Lebanese army.

Don

[panader0]

1. I just heard that there was a bank robbery and that the Leb army

chased the culprits back to the camp.

[madrchsod]

2. i watched bbc this morning but i was half asleep so try

,http://www.dailystar.com.lb/. it really is amazing how much better bbc is compared to cnn.

[madrchsod]

3. try this also..up to date report

http://english.aljazeera.net/English
Al Jazeera English - Front Page

[panader0]

4. I was surprised to hear that the Palestinians are not allowed to

hold certain jobs in Leb. That they are basically isolated in their camp. All this in an arab country. I naively thought the Palestinians were loved by all the arabs.

[Sanctified]

5. Nope, they are like the red-headed stepchildren of the Middle East. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

7. The democracy we are told of in Lebanon is an illusion. Only Christians are allowed to be president

http://www.cfr.org/publication/11135/lebanons_weak_government.html

How much power do the president, prime minister, and parliamentary speaker have?

President Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian whose term was extended in 2004 in a controversial, Syrian-backed constitutional amendment, will now serve until 2007. The president is supposed to control national security and foreign policy, but experts say he's nearly ineffectual. "Lahoud owes his position to the Syrians," Murphy says. "He's not seen as a forceful or particularly capable leader, or as a figure with any personal following. He has Syria's blessing, period." Cook agrees. "Lahoud has been sidelined," he says. "He's making some symbolic moves to show solidarity with the Lebanese in this time of crisis, but that's about it."

Under a system dating to the end of French colonial rule in 1943, the country's top leadership posts are set aside for certain religious groups: the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the parliament must be a Shiite Muslim. These provisions are especially problematic now, experts say. "You've got this wounded president, he can scuttle a few things, but he can't really act," Landis says. "And that's a problem, because he's the commander-in-chief."

[BlooInBloo]

9. If they were embraced by surrounding arab countries, there'd be no...

... rationally acceptable reason to hate on Israel. Arab countries need to keep their perpetual victim in place, in order to gain any sympathy from the world at all.

[BearSquirrel2]

12. Hehe

I naively thought the Palestinians were loved by all the arabs.

After we fought so hard in the US to bring boiling racism to a lower simmer. This is the most diverse nation in the world. Is it really so hard to believe that in other parts of the world that racism is a pressure cooker?

The people in the Middle East could care less about Palestinians. They do however hate Jews. What does it matter if someone you look down upon kills someone you hate.

The leaders in the Middle East use racism against Jews to take the focus off themselves and put it on the "dread enemy". How unique is this? Show me a politician that doesn't ... THAT is unique.

[Clark2008]

13. ROFLMAO!!

You don't know much about the Middle East.

Um, squirrel, Arabs and Jews are BOTH Semitic and are of near-similar "race"; therefore, "racism" has nothing to do with it.

Neither does religion, for that matter. The feud is over land - that small little tract known as Israel.

I would go along with you if you had said "bias" or "bigotry," but not racism.

[BearSquirrel2]

14. Scottish and Welsch

Go to Britain and see if people make any distinction of Scottish vs. Welsch vs. Irish vs. English. You name me a country, I can could find some subdivision of race however indistinguishable it may be to outsiders. You're gonna tell me that you could tell the difference between a Tutsi and Hutu. What about a Han and a Manchu? How about Arab vs. Persian vs. Kurd vs Afghan? Certainly 100 years ago on the streets of Chicago you could tell the difference between an 'mick' and a 'polak'.

You believe that race is a one word distinction. I don't think so. Britains are a race of many races. As is pretty much every other country. Continents too are races of many races. We can all easily point to a person from Europe and say "white". We can do likewise for most other distinct regions where there is more similarity then difference then the adjacent continent. I'm not celebrating this, I'm just pointing it out as the way it is.

You think Arabs, Persians and Turkmen identify with Jews because they have common ancestry 2500 years ago? I think your nuts. I think it's pretty easy to point out that the European Jews are the "newcomers" while those other groups have been there quite a while longer. They look different, act different. They have different language, different customs and a different religion.

"Near Race" my ass.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. No they are not

they are seen as invaders, and in fact many of them are the kids of the refugees expelled from Jordan in September of 1970, otherwise known as Black September

Raelity is that Israelis and Paleistinians have far more in common but leaders have done all they can...

[Behind the Aegis]

17. They also cannot vote. n/t

[Philosoraptor]

6. 50 dead so far.

[Solly Mack]

8. Lebanon accused Syria of aiding "insurgents" (Fatah al-Islam) within the camp

so...

claims of Syria (and "others") creating "Al-Qaeda" groups within the refugee camps.

[me b zola]

19. Here's Larry Johnson's take

I was scratching my head wondering how al qaeda (Sunni) was working within a Palestinian refugee camp (Shia). Well, it looks like Larry Johnson is questioning that line of thought himself: On a thread from Prosense, here's a link to LJ's thoughts:

"Al-Qa'ida is a virulently anti-Shia Sunni group...Hizbullah, a virulently anti-Sunni Shia group"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x932570

[leftofthedial]

10. dunno

but you can bet some rich motherfucker's money is involved

[Lurking Dem]

11. They always have.

[Zynx]

16. Native Lebanese hate Palestinians.

[Selatius]

18. The hatred of Palestinians goes back to the bloody years of the Lebanese Civil War

For many, the PLO presence in southern Lebanon is the prime reason Israel invaded Lebanon in the first place in the 1980s.