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Lebanon possesses neither the will, courage nor the plenipotentiary institutions to resolve its "Palestinian issue" without a lead role taken by the international community.

Yet there are no sure-fire guarantees. To be sure, the scorecard of the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, can be marked as follows; "[T]he Palestinians living there are not "refugees" in the common understanding of the term, but rather successive generations of Lebanese residents who have lived in that country their entire lives." (Richman) While in its 59-year history UNRWA has become a bloated 28,000 strong-staffed body. In contrast, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, established in 1950 to serve all other refugees in the world, has a staff of 6,300 that currently serves, by its count, 32.9 million refugees in 111 countries.

But a "win-win" solution does exist and has existed for some 8-years. In the dying days of the Camp David Summit in 2000 - President Bill Clinton and his interlocutors tried to keep alive a deliquescing Middle East peace process. The president evoked what was coined the "Clinton Plan". It was not a new idea but it did cut to the chase and had broad support. The Palestinian refugees would be granted five absorption options with priority given to Lebanon's refugees. Clinton's point 4: "settlement in various third states that were willing to absorb them." Yossi Belilin in "The Path to Geneva - 1996-2004" a sweeping balanced insiders account recalls Clinton's opening remarks; "[W]ith regard to the refugees, Israel would acknowledge the mental and material suffering of the Palestinian refugees resulting from the 1948 war, and recognize the need to assist the international community in dealing with the problem." (Beilin 222)

The president's point was sound and only required extrapolation. Herein lays my thesis: The international community under the auspices of the UN would undertake an International Migration Initiative for Lebanon's Palestinian refugees; not a forced migration but a focused sponsored humanitarian campaign, emphasizing economic prosperity, equal opportunity, education and security. International host nations would be chosen reflecting "Palestinian sensibilities" and UNRWA's $306 million annual budget would be redistributed to sponsor the program. An appropriate international tribunal would deem just reparations from the State of Israel - funneling annual dues of support - in the spirit of the "Clinton Plan".

A World Bank report of 2003, estimated that over 180 million individuals reside outside the country of their birth - despite the physical, cultural, and economic obstacles. Surely the international community has the wherewithal to redress the generational tragedy, of the 380,000 "nonnationals" in Lebanon, surely this would be "cutting the Gordian knot".

Works Cited:
Beilin, Yossi. The Path to Geneva. New York: RDV Books/Akashic Books, 2004.
Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial, 2005.
Richman, Rick. Israel News. 6 December 2007.

Learn more about this author, Russell H. Smith.
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