Crucial question

Submitted by Malcolm (Israel), Feb 26, 2015 at 11:27

The crucial question is whether and when the respective states will offer citizenship to the refugees. Up to now, Lebanon made every effort not to absorb the (Sunni) Palestinian refugee population. A proposal to grant citizenship to a million Sunni refugees from Syria would likewise incur opposition from both Marronites and Hizbullah and might even push then into a formal alliance. But if Syrian Christians fled to Lebanon en masse, Lebanese Christians and Sunnis might find common cause in granting their respective refugee populations citizenship. (Given the weirdly shifting political alliances in Lebanon, nothing should surprise us.) In Jordan, too, opposition to the granting of citizenship might prevail. So the end result might just be new massive refugee populations settled in permanent camps, like the Palestinian ones.

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