When we hear complaints about the rising number of refugees, we should remember Lebanon’s weak capabilities and infrastructure and its indebtedness, and the international community’s failure to live up to its financial commitments to help refugees, who are impoverished and needy. The Lebanese state and its various institutions can’t fill the gap.
As for terror in Lebanon, in reading the figures we find that this phenomenon isn’t Syrian, and there’s a lot of fear that it will be proven to be a Lebanese phenomenon. The largest number of terrorists is made up of Lebanese; they are the children of our society. They were trained by ISIS and Nusra, but the suicide bombers and terrorists aren’t outsiders. The ones who have been caught are moving around in Roumieh prison and elsewhere; the majority of the perpetrators are Lebanese and some of taken refuge in Palestinian refugee camps in a flight from justice.
Thus, we shouldn’t make connections or generalize when it comes to our accusations. Yes, takfiri groups might exploit the neediness of refugees, especially youngsters and adolescents, to recruit them for military and terrorist acts. However, the reality has shown that these groups have relied on poverty and ignorance – with Lebanese and non-Lebanese – and a suspicious culture that permits religion to justify all types of terror.
As for the economic impact, the figures show that there are about 1.3 million Syrians registered with the UNHCR and about 500,000 unregistered ones. This latter group hasn’t avoided registration in order to avoid paperwork and statistics-gathering, but because they don’t require the assistance of the UNHCR and aid groups. Today they live with us and among us and help stimulate the economy, which suffers from a substantial recession because visitors and Arab tourists aren’t coming. The Syrians both reap benefits and provide them, like any other citizen, although they don’t have access to health and hospitalization services.
We shouldn’t view Syrian refugees with hostility, which might provoke a similarly hostile response or even acts of revenge that might cover terrorist groups.
Terror, whether in Lebanon or any other place in the world, has no nationality, religion, or humanity.