BEIRUT - Lebanon has eased rules denying Palestinian refugees living in the country since the creation of Israel the right to work in most jobs, Labour Minister Trad Hamadeh said on Tuesday. A decree issued by Hamadeh on Monday allows Palestinians born in Lebanon to work in a range of private-sector jobs previously restricted to Lebanese citizens.
The decree does not entirely lift restrictions that have been in place for over two decades, which ban Palestinians from working in professions such as medicine, law or engineering.
| Though the Paleos have been able to find work in traditional occupations such as hard boyz, gunnies, and exploding meat. |
âIsrael kicked the Palestinians out and they are in our country whether we like it or not,â Hamadeh told Reuters. âDenying them the right to work is against human rights.â
| Letting Paleos explode is against human rights as well, but that hasn't caused you to do anything about it. |
The move comes after tens of thousands of Syrian workers left Lebanon as Syria, under local and international pressure, ended its 29-year military presence in its neighbour in April.
Hamadeh, who is close to Lebanonâs anti-Israeli Hizbollah guerrilla group, did not say how many of the 390,000 Palestinian refugees registered in the countryâs 12 squalid camps would benefit from the new rules.
Successive Lebanese governments have denied the mainly Sunni Muslim refugees -- whose ancesters who lost their homes with the creation of Israel in 1948 -- employment and property rights, let alone citizenship, fearing they may settle permanently in the country and upset its delicate sectarian balance.
| What's one more crazy group of gun-toting homies? |
Palestinians have largely been restricted to jobs provided by UNRWA, the United Nations agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees. Many work in various jobs outside the camps but they often do so illegally.
Palestinian factions in Lebanon welcomed the decision, but called for more steps to improve their peopleâs living conditions, many of whom live in teeming camps where rubbish piles up in rutted lanes and sewage runs through the streets.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon face more difficulties than their counterparts in other Arab countries, where they have more rights to education and work. Palestinian factions in Lebanon say they do not want to settle in Lebanon, but demand they be given their rights in Lebanon until they can return to their homes in what is now Israel.
| And their grandchildren will be claiming that great-great-great-great-grand-dad had a huge house on Market Street in Haifa, and they won't be satisfied until they get it back. And kill all the Joooos, of course. |
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