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I've been watching the latest Palestinian refugees crises for a week now. Thousands of Palestinian refugees fled from Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon as one week of clashes by the Lebanese army and a militant group known as Fath al-Islam has left dozens of soldiers and fighters (better described as terrorists) and an unknown number of civilians dead.

The situation of these Palestinian refugees worsens, 59 years after they were first expelled from their homeland into Lebanon. The world looks on in silence, while the U.S. RUSH with arms to support…?

There are many theories and version that explained the origins of Fath al-Islam, the events that led to the violence and what it means for Lebanon and the region.

As usual, the MSM focus on U.S. officials version and omits the others, which by the way are shocking and holds more facts than the "official" story.

Few days ago, Democracy Now! interviewed Seymour Hersh and revealed part of the untold story:

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh joins us to talk about another theory of who is backing the militant group – the Lebanese government itself, along with the United States. Last March, Hersh reported the U.S. and Saudi governments are covertly backing militant Sunni groups like Fatah al-Islam as part of an overarching foreign policy against Iran and growing Shia influence.
[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what you learned?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, very simply — this is over the winter — the government made — I think the article is called "The Redirection." There was a major change of policy by the United States government, essentially, which was that we were going to — the American government would join with the Brits and other Western allies and with what we call the moderate Sunni governments — that is, the governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — and join with them and with Israel to fight the Shia.

One of the major goals for America, of course, was the obsession the Bush White House has with Iran, and the other obsession they have is, of course — is in fear — is of Hezbollah, the Party of God, that is so dominant in — the Shia Party of God that's so dominant in southern Lebanon that once — and whose leader Hassan Nasrallah wants to play a bigger political role and is doing quite a bit to get there and is in direct confrontation with Siniora.

And so, you have a situation where the Sunni government, pretty much in control now, the American-supported Sunni government headed by Fouad Siniora, who was a deputy or an aide to Rafik Hariri, the slain leader of Lebanon, that government has — we know, the International Crisis Group reported a couple years ago that the son Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik Hariri, who's now a major player in the parliament of Lebanon, he put up $40,000 bail to free four Sunni fundamentalists, Jihadist-Salafists — which you will — who were tied directly to — you know, this word "al-Qaeda" is sort of ridiculous — they were tied to jihadist groups. And God knows, al-Qaeda, in terms of Osama bin Laden, doesn't have much to do with what we're talking about. These are independently, more or less, you can call them, fanatical jihadists.

And so, the goal — part of the goal in Lebanon, part of the way this policy played out, was, with Saudi help, Prince Bandar — if you remember him — we remember Prince Bandar, the Saudi prince, as a major player in Iran-Contra and also in the American effort two decades ago — if you remember, we supported Osama bin Laden and other jihadists in Afghanistan against the Russians, and that didn't work out so well. Well, we run right back to the well again, and we began supporting some of these jihadist groups, and particularly — in the article, I did name Fatah al-Islam.

The idea was to provide them with some arms and some money and some basic equipment so — these are small units, a couple hundred people. There were three or four around the country given the same help covertly, the goal being they would be potential enemies of Hezbollah in case of warfare; in case Nasrallah decided to do something physical, get kinetic, in Lebanon, the Sunni Siniora government would have some very tough guys on its side, period. That's the policy.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Sy Hersh, if that is true, then what has led to the current fighting now? If the Lebanese government had been backing the group, why is it now attacking it?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, first of all, the Lebanese army is very distinct. Let me begin by saying nobody really knows anything right now. I mean, there's a lot — one of the things about crises is you learn that you really get to play much later. But based on common sense and what I'm reading, the Lebanese army has maintained an amazing sort of neutrality, which is surprising. The army has not been a pawn of the Siniora government.
[..snip..]

So I think the story that we have is that there was a crime, and they were chasing people into one of the Palestinian camps, which are always hotbeds. God knows the Palestinians are the end of the stick, not only for the West, but also for the Arab world. Nobody pays much attention to them and those places. I've been to Tripoli and been into the camps, and they are seething, as they should be. You know, rational people don't like being mistreated. And in any case, so what you have is, what seems to me, just a series — the word you could use is "unintended consequences." I don't think anybody in the Siniora government anticipated that the people they were covertly supporting to some degree — I got an email the other day, and I have not checked this out, from somebody who was in the community, in the intelligence community and still consults with the community, he says, "Why don't we ask more about the American arms that the fighters of Fatah al-Islam have, are brandishing?" I don't know if that's true or not, but I did get that email. And so, that could be true. Both Saudi money and American money, not directly, but indirectly, was fed into these groups.

And what is the laugh riot and the reason I'm actually talking to you guys about this — I usually don't like to do interviews unless I have a story in The New Yorker — the reason I'm talking about it is because the American government keeps on putting out this story that Syria is behind the Fatah group, which is just beyond belief. There's no way — it may be possible, but the chances of it are very slight, simply because Syria is a very big supporter, obviously, of Nasrallah, and Bashar al-Assad has told me that he's in awe of Nasrallah, that he worships at his feet and has great respect for him. The idea that the Syrians would be sponsoring Sunni jihadist groups whose sole mission are to kill the apostates — that is, anybody who doesn't support their view, the Wahhabi or Salafist view of Sunni religion — that includes the Shia — anybody who doesn't believe — support these guys' religions are apostates and are killable, that's basically one of the crazy aspects of all this, and it's just inconceivable. Nothing can be ruled out, but that doesn't make much case, and I noticed that in the papers today there's fewer and fewer references to this. The newspapers in America are beginning to wise up, that this can't be — this isn't very logical. The White House is putting it out hot and heavy as part of the anti-Syria campaign, but it's not flying, because it doesn't make sense. So there we are. It's another mess.

You might think that one of the reasons — I think I wrote about this in The New Yorker — one of the things that the Saudi Bandar had promised us was that we can control the jihadists. We can control them, he assured us. Don't worry about getting in bed with these bad guys, because, as we remember, the same kind of assurances were given to us in the late 1980s, when we supported, as I said, bin Laden and others in the war against Russia, the Mujahideen war, and that, of course, bit us on the ass. And this is, too. So there we are.
[..snip..]

Surprise?!

Well, not until you hear more details. These details answers the question which Hersh could not or didn't have enough info about (Why and what is this all about?).

CounterPunch published an article titled: Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon? – By Dr. Franklin Lamb, in which he gives amazing details and analysis. This is a must read to understand what is going on and why:

Given Bush administration debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan and its encouragement for Israel to continue its destruction of Lebanon this past summer, the situation in Lebanon mirrors, in some respects, the early 1980's when groups sprung up to resist the US green lighted Israeli invasion and occupation. But rather than being Shia and pro-Hezbollah, today's groups are largely Sunni and anti-Hezbollah. Hence they qualify for US aid, funneled by Sunni financial backers in league with the Bush administration which is committed to funding Islamist Sunni groups to weaken Hezbollah.

This project has become the White House obsession following Israel's July 2006 defeat.

To understand what is going on with Fatah al-Islam at Nahr el-Bared one would want a brief introduction to Lebanon's amazing, but shadowy 'Welch Club'.

The Club is named for its godfather, David Welch, assistant to Secretary of State Rice who is the point man for the Bush administration and is guided by Eliot Abrams. Key Lebanese members of the Welch Club (aka: the 'Club') include:

• The Lebanese civil war veteran, warlord, feudalist and mercurial Walid Jumblatt of the Druze party( the Progressive Socialist Party or PSP)
• Another civil war veteran, warlord, terrorist (Served 11 years in prison for massacres committed against fellow Christians among others) Samir Geagea. Leader of the extremist Phalange party and its Lebanese Forces (LF) the group that conducted the Israel organized massacre at Sabra-Shatilla (although led by Elie Hobeika, once Geagea's mentor, Geagea did not take part in the Sept. 1982 slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian and Lebanese).
• The billionaire, Saudi Sheikh and Club president Saad Hariri leader of the Sunni Future Movement (FM).

Over a year ago Hariri's Future Movement started setting up Sunni Islamist terrorist cells (the PSP and LF already had their own militia since the civil war and despite the Taif Accords requiring militia to disarm they are now rearmed and itching for action and trying hard to provoke Hezbollah).

The FM created Sunni Islamist 'terrorist' cells were to serve as a cover for (anti-Hezbollah) Welch Club projects. The plan was that actions of these cells, of which Fatah el-Islam is one, could be blamed on al Qaeda or Syria or anyone but the Club.

To staff the new militias, FM rounded up remnants of previous extremists in the Palestinian Refugee camps that had been subdued, marginalized and diminished during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Each fighter got $700 per month, not bad in today's Lebanon.

The first Welch Club funded militia, set up by FM, is known locally as Jund-al-Sham (Soldiers of Sham, where "Sham" in Arabic denotes Syria, Lebanon, Palestine & Jordan) created in Ain-el-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon. This group is also referred to in the Camps as Jund-el-Sitt (Soldiers of the Sitt, where "Sitt" in Sidon, Ain-el-Hilwa and the outskirts pertain to Bahia Hariri, the sister of Rafiq Hariri, aunt of Saad, and Member of Parliament).

The second was Fateh-al-Islam (The name cleverly put together, joining Fateh as in Palestinian and the word Islam as in Qaeda). FM set this Club cell up in Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp north of Tripoli for geographical balance.

Fatah el-Islam had about 400 well paid fighters until three days ago. Today they may have more or fewer plus volunteers. The leaders were provided with ocean view luxury apartments in Tripoli where they stored arms and chilled when not in Nahr-al-Bared. Guess who owns the apartments?

According to members of both Fatah el-Islam and Jund-al-Sham their groups acted on the directive of the Club president, Saad Hariri.

So what went wrong? "Why the bank robbery" and the slaughter at Nahr el-Baled?

According to operatives of Fatah el-Islam, the Bush administration got cold feet with people like Seymour Hirsh snooping around and with the White House post-Iraq discipline in free fall. Moreover, Hezbollah intelligence knew all about the Clubs activities and was in a position to flip the two groups who were supposed to ignite a Sunni ­Shia civil war which Hezbollah vows to prevent.

Things started to go very wrong quickly for the Club last week. FM "stopped" the payroll of Fateh el-Islam's account at the Hariri family owned back.

Fateh-al-Islam, tried to negotiate at least 'severance pay' with no luck and they felt betrayed. (Remember many of their fighters are easily frustrated teenagers and their pay supports their families). Militia members knocked off the bank which issued their worthless checks. They were doubly angry when they learned FM is claiming in the media a loss much greater than they actually snatched and that the Club is going to stiff the insurance company and actually make a huge profit.

Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (newly recruited to serve the bidding of the Club and the Future Movement) assaulted the apartments of Fatah-al-Islam Tripoli. They didn't have much luck and were forced to call in the Lebanese army.

Within the hour, Fatah-al-Islam retaliated against Lebanese Army posts, checkpoints and unarmed, off-duty Lebanese soldiers in civilian clothing and committed outrageous killings including severing at four heads.

Up to this point Fatah-al-Islam did not retaliate against the Internal Security forces in Tripoli because the ISF is pro-Hariri and some are friends and Fatah al-Islam still hoped to get paid by Hariri. Instead Fatah al Islam went after the Army.

The Seniora cabinet convenes and asks the Lebanese Army to enter the refugee camp and silence (in more ways than one) Fatah-al-Islam. Since entrance into the Camps is forbidden by the 1969 Arab league agreement, the Army refuses after realizing the extent of the conspiracy against it by the Welch Club. The army knows that entering a refugee camp in force will open a front against the Army in all twelve Palestinian refugee camps and tear the army apart along sectarian cracks.

The army feels set up by the Club's Internal Security Forces which did not coordinate with the Lebanese Army, as required by Lebanese law and did not even make them aware of the "inter family operation" the ISF carried out against Fatah-al-Islam safe houses in Tripoli.

Today, tensions are high between the Lebanese army and the Welch Club. Some mention the phrase 'army coup'.

The Club is trying to run Parliament and is prepared to go all the way not to 'lose' Lebanon. It still holds 70 seats in the house of parliament while the Hezbollah led opposition holds 58 seats. It has a dutiful PM in Fouad Siniora.

The club tried to seize control of the presidency and when it failed it marginalized it. Last year it tried to control of the Parliamentary Constitutional Committee, which audits the government's policies, laws and watch dogs their actions. When the Club failed to control it they simply abolished the Constitutional Committee. This key committee no longer exists in Lebanon's government.

The Welch Club's major error was when it attempted to influence the Lebanese Army into disarming the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah. When the Army wisely refused, the Club coordinated with the Bush Administration to pressure Israel to dramatically intensify its retaliation to the capture of the two soldiers by Hezbollah and 'break the rules' regarding the historically more limited response and try to destroy Hezbollah during the July 2006 war.

The Welch Club now considers the Lebanese Army a serious problem. The Bush administration is trying to undermine and marginalize it to eliminate one of the last two obstacles to implementing Israel's agenda in Lebanon.

If the army is weakened, it can not protect over 70% of the Christians in Lebanon who support General Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. The F.P.M. is mainly constituted of well educated, middle class and unarmed Lebanese civilians. The only protection they have is the Lebanese Army which aids in maintaining their presence in the political scene. The other type of Christians in Lebanon is the minority, about 15% of Christians associated with Geagea's Lebanese Forces who are purely militia. If the Club can weaken the Army even more than it is, then this Phalange minority will be the only relatively strong force on the Christian scene and become the "army" of the Club.

Another reason the Club wants to weaken the Lebanese Army is that the Army is nationalistic and is a safety valve for Lebanon to ensure the Palestinian right of return to Palestine, Lebanese nationhood and the resistance culture led by Hezbollah, with which is has excellent relations.

For their part, the Welch Club wants to keep some Palestinians in Lebanon for cheap labor, ship others to countries willing to take them (and be paid handsomely to do so by American taxpayers) and allow at most a few thousand to return to Palestine to settle the 'right of return' issue while at the same time signing a May 17th 1983 type treaty with Israel with enriches the Club members and gives Israel Lebanon's water and much of Lebanon's sovereignty.

Long story short, Fatah el-Islam must be silenced at all costs. Their tale, if told, is poison for the Club and its sponsors. We will likely see their attempted destruction in the coming days.

Hezbollah is watching and supporting the Lebanese army.

Personally — as s Sunni Muslim — I trust Nasrallah and the above version of the story than the official Lebanese/American theory (no theory actually).

Beneath these ironic "unintended consequences" as Hesrh called them, the Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians are the victims. For several days now, some PLO figures are negotiating with Fath Al-Islam, on behalf of the Lebanese government, the Lebanese army, the Americans, etc, God knows on whose behalf and for what, but that's not the issue. What is more important to me is the civilian Palestinian refugees who fled the camp, and the remaining ten thousand refugees still in the camp (reports says that more than thirty thousand fled and ten thousand remained).

Once again, Palestinians has nothing to do with the conflict, yet, they pay the price with their blood. In an interview on Al-Arabiya television on May 23, the Lebanese defense minister, Ilyas Murr, stated that of the several dozen terrorist killed in the battles, not a single a fighter is identified as Palestinian. He said they are mostly Lebanese, Saudi, Yemeni, Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan and so on.

I hate to say this, but what the PLO in Lebanon fears is a retaliation war between Palestinians – from one side – and Lebanese – from the other side. Unfortunately this is supported by the fact that, on one hand the Palestinians (not the Lebanese government or the army) are the ones negotiating with Fath al-Islam to save lives and solve the conflict, and on the other hand the dead silence reaction to the indiscriminate killing/shelling of the refugees in the camp by the Lebanese army. No one can imagine that 'some or all' the of the Palestinian militias in Lebanon will keep silent any longer if the Palestinian refugees are not safe and continues to be killed indiscriminately (by the Lebanese army or fath al-Islam) while no one cares to protect them.

Monitoring the reaction in Lebanon this is one of the most painful elements in this story and in history. There is an overwhelming competition by people and organizations to pay tribute to the Lebanese army but not a single political party in Lebanon has spoken out against the indiscriminate shelling of the refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, except for Nasrallah (so Hezbollah), conservatively, indirectly, but late. However, as they say: "better later than never". Contrary, several Lebanese political parties tried and still working on theories to tie Fath al-Islam with Palestinian militias'.

This is nothing but a general racist attitude towards Palestinians. Maybe that's why it is easy for so many people to tolerate indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian refugee camps (similar to Israel case, which always escape the same crimes when they target the Palestinian civilians in Occupied Palestine). If Arab can do it, why not Zionists? Very painful … but true!

What can YOU do? YOU can help by engaging in Political/media activism AND also donate.

Razan, a sweet close friend of mine informed me few days ago about the formation of Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign. The organization delivers medicine and the supplies needed to Badawi camp (where most refugees of Nahr el Bared camp fled to):

About the Campaign
The Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign was spontaneously formed following the tragic events in Nahr el Bared Camp. We are a grouping of unaffiliated individuals working on relief and civil action to end the violence and offer aid to those injured and displaced due to the Nahr el Bared conflict.

Donation Account Details
For tax-deductible donations to the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign please use the following account:

AUB Office of Development
https://rtf.aub.edu.lb/

Please make sure to specify that your donation is going to the Nahr el Bared refugees.

Contact us
marcynewman [at] gmail [dot] com: 70-977812 r.moumneh [at] gmail [dot] com: 03-356644

Aid supply drop-offs
If you have any donations you would like to drop off in person, you can do so in Teh-Marboota Cafe, Pavillion Center, Hamra main road.

Razan went to Badawi camp and she made interviews with refugees who've lost their families under the Lebanese army bombs. She got an initial list of martyrs. You can see the post here:
http://ya-ashrafe-nnas.blogspot.com/2007/05/dont-feel-sorry-about-me-see-me.html

More donations can be sent to The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA):
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=1171

(Image by Ben Heine)

Update (1): In his most recent report, the 'Welch club' story writer, Franklin Lamb says, "Will try to send results shortly of my interviews with 11 Fatah al-Islam fighters regarding who paid them and got them travel documents and weapons and what was their mission. There was no bank robbery by them. That was a fake story put out by the Welch Club. Sorry I misreported it. BBC was suckered. Also, no, repeat no heads cut off. Where are the medical reports from those who claim it? That was black propaganda to smear Fatah el-Islam. Must leave this building now may not be until tomorrow or so."

A Dutch reporter in Beirut, Sietske Galama, asks "Who is Franklin Lamb?," and says, "if he's for real, he's real good." Galama notes, "The man is right now inside the Palestinian camp Nahr el-Bared. While all of us journalists are sort of hovering on the outskirts of the camp, this man actually went inside. Or at least that is what he writes."

From the little that I could find out, Dr. Franklin Lamb is described as an "international lawyer," is or was a researcher at the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies, American University of Beirut, a research associate at If Americans Knew, has been in Lebanon researching a book for the past nine months, and is the author of several books about the middle east conflict.

For more analysis and view of this story, see Missing Links' blog posts titled: A possible explanation and The war scenario.

Update (2): In this most recent piece, Franklin Lamb expounds further upon the proposed US airbase, previously broached, as the rationale for the recent terrible covert operations that saw dozens of Palestinians and Lebanese Army soldiers die. He doesn't much distinguish between the proposal as a US or an Israeli airbase (it is marketed as as a US/ NATO initiative) assuming that the hand of David Welch and Elliot Abrams means that the ziocons in the US might as well mean that Israel would have access to a proposed base in a country they were just at war with. (Source: Ann)