August 9, 1951 Arab Refugees

The Lebanese newspaper, Kul-Shay, placed the responsibility for the flight of the Arab refugees on the Arab states and scored their neglect of the problem, declaring:

“Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honour nor conscience?   Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honour?  The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it!

“Does not Lebanon share in the common responsibility for their fate?  But when she is asked to shoulder the burden of the outcome of her participation in a political and military misadventure, some newspapers and certain groups hasten to foretell calamities and disasters.

“You are welcoming thousands of Kurds and Assyrians as co-religionists and citizens; however you deny the right of those, in the expulsion, humiliation and poverty of whom you had a hand, to take refuge with you and to give you their energy love, power, and property.”