The Other Palestinian Crisis

Nahr al-Bared, the devastated Palestinian refugee camp north of Beirut where the Lebanese army battled Fatah al-Islam last summer (photo by Brian Till)

Last night, following a concert at the Roman Amphitheatre in Amman, Jordan, six musicians were attacked by a sole gunman as they boarded their bus. The AP identified the gunman as Palestinian refugee Thaer Weheidi, a 19 year old resident of the Baqaa refugee camp. None were killed, though Weheidi, who turned his weapon upon himself after being chased by police, is said to be in critical condition.

While the Jordanian government holds the act was criminally motivated and not terrorist related, CNN has reported claims that the attacker yelled "Allahu Akbar" before firing on the bus.

The incident adds a new dimension to an ongoing and possibly blossoming battle. Palestinian refugees have long been a bastion of instability in the region, but of late their activity appears to be festering, rather than waning.

Most of the action is happening in Lebanon. Last summer's battle between the Lebanese army (LAF) and the jihadi group Fatah al- Islam took nearly three months to play out, and ended with the annihilation of the Nahr al- Bared refugee camp and the escape of Shaker al Absi, the group's leader. Those living in the camp have sought refugee in Lebanon's dozen other sights, and the projected cost of rebuilding the camp are in the $380-400 million range.


The camps in Lebanon -- where over 400,000 live in the worst conditions in the region in terms of Palestinian living -- are virtually lawless regions, in which the LAF does not set foot, allowing factions of the PLO and various jihadi groups play out their differences with bombs and bullets.

The situation is only getting worse. In the last several weeks, fighting has intensified, the leader of the Sunni group Jund al-Sham, Imad Yassin, was nearly killed by a bomb in the Ain el-Helweh camp in south Leabanon, where several groups with known Al Qeada links are currently operating. Clashes in the Burj al-Barajneh camp have also sparked fears of another war like last summer's.

In recent months, statements by both Zayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden have suggested their hopes that a campaign against Israel will become the next major front in their jihad, a battle for which a foothold in Lebanon would be exceedingly useful.

While I was in Beirut earlier this summer, an attempted suicide bomber was killed on the fringes of the Ein el-Helweh camp before he was able to detonate his explosive belt. Sources both within the UN and the military independently suggested that the government had effectively spun the media, and that the bomber had not been Palestinian, as alleged, but rather a Saudi.

But al-Qaeda might not be the only instigator of this uptick in violence. The New Yorker's ace investigative reporter Sy Hersh published a story last year suggesting that the U.S. had a adopted a policy based on financially supporting Sunni Salafi militants in hopes of counterbalancing the rising strength of Shi'a Hezbollah, a patron of Iran. The middleman for the U.S. support, Hersh suggests, is Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia.

For those versed in foreign policy -- or even just Tom Hanks films for that matter -- this is clearly reminiscent of two major American foreign policy ventures of the past: Afghanistan in the 80's and Iran-Contra, neither of which we find ourselves tremendously proud of today.