A banner displaying a drawing of the late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader, Yasser Arafat, hangs above a busy street in Shatila refugee camp, in Beirut's southern suburbs, in September 2022. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
For Palestinians living in Lebanon, the recent diplomatic carousel concerning the status of a homeland they are still barred from returning to feels distant at best and hypocritical to many.Within a year of Yasser Arafat’s 1988 declaration of Palestinian independence, 89 countries — mostly from the Global South — had given Palestine their formal recognition. Now, as of Sept. 23, the majority of EU, NATO, and G20 states have done so too. The latest push, as Israel’s war on Gaza nears the two-year mark, saw heavyweights like France, the U.K., Canada and Australia join most of the rest of the world in recognizing Palestinian statehood, bringing the number of U.N. member states to do so to 157 out of 193.According to U.N. estimates, around 222,000 Palestinians are living in exile in Lebanon today. How is the latest wave of recognition being...
For Palestinians living in Lebanon, the recent diplomatic carousel concerning the status of a homeland they are still barred from returning to feels distant at best and hypocritical to many.Within a year of Yasser Arafat’s 1988 declaration of Palestinian independence, 89 countries — mostly from the Global South — had given Palestine their formal recognition. Now, as of Sept. 23, the majority of EU, NATO, and G20 states have done so too. The latest push, as Israel’s war on Gaza nears the two-year mark, saw heavyweights like France, the U.K., Canada and Australia join most of the rest of the world in recognizing Palestinian statehood, bringing the number of U.N. member states to do so to 157 out of 193.According to U.N. estimates, around 222,000 Palestinians are living in exile in Lebanon today. How is the latest wave of...
