Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
On Sunday, I wrote about how Lebanon was cracking down on non-citizens - including the Palestinians that have been "guests" there for over 70 years.
I had read and written about Lebanon's extreme restrictions on Palestinians - banning them from many types of jobs, not allowing them to own land or even expand their houses in the camps. And now businesses that hired Palestinians are being shut down and owners arrested.
I didn't know about this law, though.
If Palestinians in Lebanon want to work and they are being so restricted from working for others, naturally they would think about starting their own businesses, right?
Lebanon's laws make that extraordinarily difficult for them.
For every new business, the (non-citizen) owner must deposit one hundred million Lebanese pounds (about $67,000).
If they manage to pass that high hurdle, and they want to open a mom-and-pop shop, there is another rule: 75% of their employees must be Lebanese.
Which means that the mom and pop must hire six workers they might not need to even open the business!
These are the businesses that Lebanon has been shutting down recently, along with Lebanese owned businesses who hired Palestinians for jobs they are not allowed to have.
Palestinians burned tires at the entrance to their UNRWA camp to protest the crackdown, although why that would be considered anything besides inconveniencing their own people is another question.
Palestinian groups, both Fatah and Hamas, have protested the new laws to the Lebanese government, so far to no avail.
As of this writing, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Twitter accounts have been silent on this.
