What is the position of American and European civil right groups on the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon?
From the Wikipedia article Palestinians in Lebanon:
Most Palestinians in Lebanon do not have Lebanese citizenship and therefore do not have Lebanese identity cards, which would entitle them to government services, such as health and education. They are also legally barred from owning property or entering a list of desirable occupations. Employment requires a government-issued work permit, and, according to the New York Times in 2011, although "Lebanon hands out and renews hundreds of thousands of work permits every year to people from Africa, Asia and other Arab countries... until now, only a handful have been given" to Palestinians. Palestinians in Lebanon also have to heavily rely on the UNRWA for basic services such as healthcare and education, because they are not granted much access to the social services the Lebanese government provides.
An immigrant minority treated in this way would be typically viewed as a case of blatant discrimination, but in the case of Lebanon it seems to be overshadowed by the origin of this population - the descendants of the Palestinian refugees from the territories nowadays considered parts of Israel. However, these are two distinct issues:
- It is fair to demand from Israel restitution of property and perhaps even citizenship rights, as this is done, e.g., by many European countries in respect to the descendants of the Jewish refugees from the Holocaust or even the Inquisition. (Possibly, such measures could be installed for Palestinians alongside the similar reparations by the Arab countries towards their Jewish refugees.)
- It is also fair to demand from Lebanon to integrate its Palestinian population - particularly in view of seemingly pro-Palestinian stance adopted by such an influential force in Lebanon as Hezbollah. It is somewhat hypocritical to tell people, who were born in Lebanon and lived all their life in it, that their home is elsewhere.