From: UPI
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Deportations feared a prelude for settling Palestinians in Lebanon
Date: 21 Dec 92 00:26:46 GMT
Reply-To: ayman@eecs.umich.edu
Organization: United Press International
X-Note: This article was automatically cross-posted to soc.culture.lebanon

[ Article cross-posted without permission ]

	BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) -- Lebanon seemed determined Sunday not to allow
416 Palestinian deportees squeezed into a valley in southern Lebanon
between its army and Israeli troops to enter its territory, fearing it
would be a prelude for settling Palestinians in the tiny country.
	The Palestinians demonstrated for a second day Sunday to protest
Israel's expulsion of 418 Palestinian activists from the fundamentalist
Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine organizations.
	About 200 Palestinian students gathered at the International
Committee of the Red Cross headquarters in the port city of Sidon, 24
miles south of Beirut, handed ICRC officials a memorandum urging U.N.
Secretary-General Butros Butros-Ghali to implement a Security Council
resolution demanding the return of the deportees to the Israeli-occupied
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
	The Security Council Resolution boosted the morale of the Palestinian
deportees and consolidated the position of the Lebanese government.
	``The Lebanese position is now stronger,'' Defense Minister Mohsen
Dalloul said Sunday. Dalloul affirmed that his government will honor its
decision to deny entry to the refugees.
	``In that way, they will remain a problem in the face of the Israelis
and not for us,'' he said. He said the world cannot stand idle ``and
keep on watching their ordeal.''
	Dalloul said Israel is facing mounting pressure as the secretary-
general is engaged in contacts to secure the return of the deportees.``
	Deputy Mohammed Kabbani warned that the Lebanese authorities will
never allow the Palestinians into ``our territories even if they have to
resort to force.''
	Former Prime Minister Amin Al Hafez said he feared the Israeli
deportations ``would be a prelude for settling Palestinians in Lebanon.''
	Unofficial statistics indicated that nearly half a million
Palestinians, displaced at various phases since the first Arab-Israeli
war in 1948, are living in Lebanon.
	The Lebanese feared the Mideast peace talks would be at their
expense, leaving them with the fait accommpli of sharing their country
with the Palestinian refugees.
	Christians have always been alarmed at the growing number of
Palestinians on their land and by the Muslim sympathy and support for
them.
	Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir denounced Sunday ``the inhuman
Israeli deportations and the uprooting of a whole people from their
land.''
	Probably it was the first time that Muslims and Christians agree on a
common stand on the Palestinians.
	Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, seemed to be approving the
firm Lebanese stand.
	The deputy secretary-general of the Syrian Social Baath Party,
Abdallah Al Ahmar, defended the Lebanese position and said: ``The
Lebanese are not refusing to receive the Palestinians but object their
expulsion from their country.
	``Such a stand expresses the right of the Palestinians to return to
their land,'' Al Ahmar said. He said the deportations proved again 
``Israel's aggressive policy in the region'' and warned that it would
obstruct the Arab-Israeli peace talks.
	For the 416 deportees, there third night in the open between the Marj
Al Zouhour manned by the Lebanese Army and the Israeli-controlled
Zimrayya gate was marked by flares and bursts fired by the Israelis that
lighted the sky over their camp.
	Early Sunday, Israeli artillery bombarded hills overlooking the camp
in an attempt to force the deportees to move further north toward the
Lebanese checkpoint.
	``We are determined to return to our land,'' said the deportees
spokesman, Abdel Aziz Rantissi. ``We are used to Israeli terrorist and
savage actions but this time we will expose them before the whole world.
''
	At dawn, the deportees lined up to pray and later decided to name the
camp ``Al Qods-The return.''