Transcript of the video:

Helena Cobban (00:00:04):

Hello, everybody. I'm Helena Cobban, the president of Just World Educational, and I'd like to welcome you to this eighth session in our 10 part webinar series, Commonsense on Syria. Today, we'll be learning more about the situation of the half million or so Palestinian refugees in Syria, many of whose families have lived there since the Nakba of 1948. And today, for the first time, we'll have three expert panelists. On the webinar, we have Dr. Waddah al-Khatib, a Palestinian who grew up in Syria, and now heads the cultural studies department at Damascus University, who is with us from his home quarantine in Damascus. Hello Waddah.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:00:50):

Hi, Helena. It's nice to be with you today.

Helena Cobban (00:00:54):

Great to have you with us. And we have Dr. Faedah Totah, a Palestinian American anthropologist who teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University. She's with us from Richmond, Virginia. Hello, Faedah.

Faedah Totah (00:01:08):

Hi, Helena. Thank you for having me.

Helena Cobban (00:01:11):

It's great to have you with us. And finally, ambassador Peter Ford, who for many years was the chief emissary of the UN Relief Agency, UNRWA to the Arab States, and before that had been Britain's Ambassador to Damascus. Peter is back with us from Northern England for this session of the webinar. Hello, Peter.

Peter Ford (00:01:33):

Hi everyone. Good to be with you.

Helena Cobban (00:01:37):

Now I want to welcome all our attendees here on the webinar today. We have, thus far, 87 and counting. We usually get well over a hundred, so we're looking forward to maybe having some more people join us. Thanks for tuning in. As you probably know by now, you can communicate with the Just World elfs who are working behind the scenes here by using the chat button that's at the bottom of your zoom screen. The elfs can answer any technical questions you have, and they will also be queuing up and reviewing any substantive questions you want to pose to the panelists during the Q&A session that we'll have in the latter portion of the webinar. We are delighted that our chief elf is our distinguished board member, Dr. Alice Rothchild, who will put in an appearance a little later. So if you want to ask a question of the panelists, please submit it via the chat box. Please word it succinctly and have it be an actual question. Our elves do not have the time to be reading through long rants. We also ask you to keep your questions to the topic of today's session. So, first, I'll turn to you Waddah and ask you what it was like growing up Palestinian in Syria.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:03:03):

Oh good evening, everyone. Being a Palestinian in Syria, growing up in the seventies and eighties of the past century initially until you begin to establish your identity you don't get a sense of you being different from your classmates, from people in the neighborhood. I actually happened to be one of the many Palestinians who did not live in one of the refugee camps in Syria. This is a fact people don't know perhaps about a life in Syria, is that many Palestinians lived outside refugee camps in the, in the city of Damascus or in other major cities. So it was basically growing up as a Syrian kid. You go to public schools, you don't get any treatment that is different in registering for school just for being Palestinian.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:04:08):

Of course, you can go to the UNRWA schools, the United Nations you know, Work and Relief Agency Refugees of Palestine. They had a school system in Syria for many Palestinians that would go from KG1 one to the 12th grade. But you would go to school and you would not really notice that you were a Palestinian perhaps. For me, the first time that I did become conscious of that was in 1973 when the war erupted, the 1973 war in the Middle East. And some people started talking about, optimistically, obviously about Palestinians going back to their you know, homes and towns and cities and Palestine as a result of the war. So perhaps that time was the first time that I inquired from my parents about what does it mean to be a Palestinian and got the narrative that a a Palestinian refugee would get from his parents about how we happened to be here where we are originally from, how we belong to two places at the same time, and how our very sense of identity is constructed around the idea of return.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:05:33):

Now, other than that of course you know, sometimes when somebody of my generation looks at our lives we feel like a forest gump type of personalities. We lived through the 1973 war, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. We've been through the Intifadas of various types. And each one of those events kind of contributed to our sense of identity and our sense of belonging, or at times not belonging. Now in Syria we have a very unique situation for Palestinian refugees. They're treated by law almost as you know, as equals to Syrian citizens. This is a result of a law that was passed in 1956 with the only democratically elected parliament in the history of Syria that passed, a lot considered every Palestinian refugee living in Syria at the time, and their descendants as having rights that are very similar to Syrian citizens.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:06:49):

We get, you know, universal healthcare like Syrian citizens. We go to public schools, we go to universities, pay the same tuition fees as Syrians. I was nominated to to the Fulbright Scholarship by Damascus University who hired me as a teaching assistant. And so based on merit, my being Palestinian did not was not something that prevented me from actually enjoying many of the rights that Syrians have. Couple of things that we don't usually get that the Syrian citizen gets are getting a chance to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is strictly for Syrians and also obviously participating in political life elections, whatever type of elections we're talking about whether it be local or national. And also there are certain restrictions on property owning.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:08:01):

You can own a family house. You can own a business, but you cannot own multiple properties. Bylaw in Syria, overall, Syrians as, as a people too, Palestinians as an extension of them. I mean, I'm, I'm not talking about, you know, specific cases where some people may feel different from that. But the vast majority of Syrians feel the Palestinians are naturally just an extension of Syria. To put this in perspective, I mean, distance between Damascus, the capital of Syria and Jerusalem is shorter than distance between much shorter than distance between, say Washington DC and New York, or New York and Boston. In many cases families in the pre-modern age and before you know, World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, families of Northern Palestine would just cross, you know, River Jordan or cross the mountains into Damascus and vice versa.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:09:10):

So this is the type of life that we've led of course punctuated naturally by all these events that have shaped a great deal of who we are and what we are. It's very difficult to explain what it meant to live through the 1982 invasion of Lebanon with having friends from Damascus and from the refugee camps who were in Lebanon and who never got back. It's very difficult to explain how we felt when the Madrid peace process started. And then how we feel about it now. So it's a story of hope perhaps and a great deal of despair, but never losing a sense of focus on who we are. I think I should probably stop at this point and

Helena Cobban (00:10:10):

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, that really I think explained a lot. We'll have a lot more questions to come back and ask you later, I'm sure. Now, I'm sorry, I do have to move to Peter. Well, actually, I'm delighted to have Peter with his expertise, who's gonna give us a few facts and figures about the Palestinian refugees in Syria, or at least the ones registered with UNRWA for whom UNRWA has responsibility. So, over to you, Peter.

Peter Ford (00:10:42):

Well first a little bit of history. Palestinians fled in thousands to Syria from Palestine in 1948. And a couple of years after that. The international agency UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees was set up andUNRWA provided essential services for these refugees. Essentially education and healthcare and some help with food for the most needy. And UNRWA continues to supply these services ever since the number of Palestinians has grown, obviously, over the years, as you see on this display UNRWA calculates that there are 438,000 refugees registered with UNRWA. Not all Palestinians in Syria are registered, a number married Syrians, and have kind of slipped into Syrian society. But we can say that broadly there are close to half a million Palestinians in Syria.

Peter Ford (00:12:20):

The number is down from 2011. UNRWA say that in 2011 when the recent conflict kicked off, the number was 527,000. So you see that many thousands have fled, many approximately 30,000 to Lebanon, and approximately 17,000 to Jordan. Palestinians, if that's possible, have arguably suffered even more than Syrians, people with Syrian nationality because they have faced even more displacement UNRWA reckoned that about 60% of Palestine Palestine refugees in Syria have been displaced at least once. And in many cases, more, more than once. And this is possibly a reflection of the fact that the camps, the nine refugee camps in Syria have been battlefields and, and have become focuses of the conflict. These nine camps are spread mainly in the western part of the, the country essentially in Damascus and its surroundings in the South Daraa in the north in Hama and Aleppo.

Peter Ford (00:14:12):

And more recently a gathering who've grown on the coast near Latakia. UNRWA runs about 104 schools in these camps, and has 26 clinics. However, during the course of the conflict about 40% of classrooms have been destroyed, 40% of classrooms destroyed. As a result, UNRWA has turned to the Syrian government for assistance, and the Syrian government has set up in its own government schools second shifts, so that the Palestine refugee children can get an education. And I have to say, this has been typical of the good treatment that Palestine refugees have received in Syria. I think most people would agree that that treatment has been better in Syria than any of the other host countries be it Lebanon or Jordan or, or Egypt. We can go into the reasons for that later, but I'm just saying that the Syrian government have provided these extra education services.

Helena Cobban (00:15:42):

Thank you very much. That's a great snapshot. Again, more questions I'm sure will come to you later. So now we'll turn to Dr. Faedah Totah. Dr. Faedah, in addition to the book, you earlier wrote about urban preservation efforts in the old city of Damascus. You have conducted a number of studies of the lives of Palestinians in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria. Could you sketch out some of your most important findings, you know, in about three or four minutes, that is <laugh>, and then perhaps start telling us what has happened to these Palestinians in Syria during the years of the current conflict?

Faedah Totah (00:16:22):

Thank you. First of all I wanna emphasize as the two previous speakers have said that Palestinians in Syria have a unique situation. And as we see with Palestinians throughout the region, it depends on the policies of the host government and how they treated the Palestinian issue. It kind of reflected in how Palestinian refugees were treated. Another thing that I want to emphasize is that there are a lot more Palestinians in Syria than Palestinian refugees. You could have a large number of Palestinians who are not registered not because they weren't considered refugees by UNRWA, but because they came to Syria as a result of disruption in the region, like in the aftermath of the Black September in 1970 in Jordan. And so, you do have a number of Palestinians who live in Syria, and they're stateless, really stateless with no IDs, no papers, no nothing.

Faedah Totah (00:17:25):

And they kind of fall into the cracks when it comes to humanitarian organizations. Unfortunately, I couldn't get an exact number of these Palestinians. So, as, as Helena mentioned, I did work on the historic preservation of the old city of Damascus in the heady days of the 2000s before the Civil War started, and where the old city of Damascus was being promoted as a heritage cultural site, which brought renewed interest into the built environment, as well as in the historic neighborhoods, including the Jewish quarter. The Jewish quarter in Damascus has a long history. Jews have been living in Damascus for over a millennia, but what ended up happening due to politics, is that many of them fled. However, as a result of the Nakba in 1948, a large number of Palestinians were housed in the old city and in courtyard houses.

Faedah Totah (00:18:29):

Some of you may be familiar with the Damascene courtyard houses. They are several rooms that are not internally connected surrounding an open space, the courtyard in the middle. So they were ideal for housing a large number of families in one house. So when I went to Damascus in the early 2000, there was still a large substantial Palestinian refugee population living in the old city. There existed in UNRWA Center, and there was the Alliance School that had been taken over by UNRWA and where Palestinians were, were going. So, the idea was that Palestinians living in the historic old city were problematic as Damascus was trying to become a tourist destination. You don't, you can't really have tourists and refugees living side by side. So when I started my research, there was some concern about the large number of Palestinian refugees still living in the old city as the old city was becoming a cultural destination.

Faedah Totah (00:19:44):

And what's also interesting is that a lot of the literature doesn't really talk about Palestinians living in the old city. A lot of the emphasis is on Palestinians in the refugee camp. But as Waddah earlier mentioned, not all Palestinians in Syria live in refugee camps. Even the most famous of all camps, Yarmouk camp, which is also considered asimat al-shatat or, or the capital of the diaspora where you have a solid Palestinian presence. Only 20% of the pre-war population was Palestinian. So even spaces that are considered to be refugee camps were predominantly inhabited by Syrians and, and not just Palestinians. And, and so the Old City also happens to be one of those areas where you had a concentration of Palestinians, but they're not really visible people who actually live in, in Damascus and know that there are Palestinians in, in, in the Jewish quarter or in, and unfortunately, I've lost touch with a lot of my other people that I was interviewing.

Faedah Totah (00:20:53):

They were elderly because I was really interested in their history in the old city. So even when I was interviewing them 10 years ago, they were in their eighties, and some were even in their nineties. And, and so many of them had passed away. However, and I haven't been able to go back since 2008, but what I've understood is that they're still living there. UNRWA still has a center there and has converted it to offering more assistance, because many of the Palestinians living in the old city tend to come from modest backgrounds. And what's also interesting is that, Al Amin, even before the war, Was considered to be one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the old city, where in addition to Palestinians and, and, and the few remaining Jews who still live in Damascus, there was a substantial Armenian population as well as a Shia population. And, and so from what I also understand is now that there are more Shia living in the old Jewish quarter than before.

Helena Cobban (00:21:57):

Fascinating. And I thought the little bit of conversation we had yesterday about Yarmouk Camp being really a sort of upper middle class or anyway, definitely middle class neighborhood was interesting because I guess my experience of the refugee camps in Lebanon, for example, is, you know, the terrible overcrowding and just horrendous conditions of Shatila camp today or whatever. I, let's move to the impact of the conflict on the Palestinian refugees in Syria. Waddah could you speak to that a little bit?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:22:41):

Sure. I can begin from where you, talking about Yarmouk. Yarmouk was a you know, as our Palestinian friends in Lebanon would say, was a, a five star refugee camp in comparison. Yarmouk camp the, the main you know, population concentration of Palestinians in Syria was completely devastated by the conflict, by the military actions. Initially it was overtaken by Islamic fighters. And over the years many people who lived in Yarmouk moved away from the camp to Damascus and to the Damascus countryside. And over the years, what we have seen is a steady flow of these people leaving Syria. Mainly from what I know, to places like the Netherlands and Sweden and Europe in general the camp itself now is almost uninhabitable.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:24:00):

It's really tragic when, when, when you think about it, the main street of the camp, sharia al-Yamouk, the stores in that street were as expensive to rent, if you want to start a business or to buy, as some very expensive areas in downtown Damascus. This is all gone. The people are gone. What we know is that naturally many of the refugees who were there had to leave very early on without any chance to get most of their belongings. And so we have a sense of people being completely deprived of not only their material positions, but also of their memories in the camp. This is a camp that houses one of the largest cemeteries of any refugee camp with also historic significance.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:25:02):

Many of the leaders of the Palestinian national movement were buried in, in those cemeteries. Those cemeteries are completely destroyed today. The graves were completely destroyed. In some cases we know that even the, the name on the, the names on the tombstones were completely defaced, or the tombstones themselves were stolen for reasons that are totally unclear to me. Now, the result is that yes, we have a percentage, we don't know the percentage today of Palestinian refugees in Syria, who in Europe those of us who are still here have to struggle with our daily lives. I guess the same way that an average Syrian citizen struggles about what Peter says is extremely important when we think about the continual displacement of of the Palestinians of Syria first of all becoming IDPs and then becoming IDPs again, and then moving outside the country. So that's the situation right now. I, I don't know that I answered your question.

Helena Cobban (00:26:27):

I think you've answered quite a lot. Peter, could you actually speak a little bit, as far as, you know, how easy is it for a Palestinian refugee in Syria to get to Europe when Waddah makes it seem almost easy, but, but is it <laugh>?

Peter Ford (00:26:43):

Well, if we look at the numbers, it, it seems relatively easy. I, i, I can't remember off the top of my, my head, but I think the, a majority of the Palestinians who have left Syria during the, the conflict have made it through Europe. Perhaps that's partly a function of them being well educated in UNRWA schools. But it, it's an observable fact that they, they, I think roughly 50,000 have made it through Europe.

Helena Cobban (00:27:22):

So what kind of travel documents do they have? They don't have a Syrian passport, but do they have laissez-passer? How can they cross borders and so on?

Peter Ford (00:27:34):

Well, many have been boat people arriving very deliberately sans passport. There must be many who made it through Turkey. Turkey has been turning a blind eye for years to the passage of anybody who appeared to be against the Syrian government. Many went by boat from Turkey, inevitably.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:28:06):

If, if I may step in here just to clarify also, Helena. Yes. It is a lot easier for a Palestinian leaving Syria to get refugee status and places like Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands than for Syrians themselves. We have established stories, many narratives. I can think of cases that I know in Austria, where a Palestinian and Syrian family who crossed Europe together to Austria and sought asylum there, the Palestinian family, the paperwork for the Palestinian family was processed a lot faster than the Syrian family. By virtue of the fact that they have either a laissez-passer just some proof that they're Palestinian refugees in Syria, the national ID or something like that.

Faedah Totah (00:29:01):

But also Waddah, perhaps you can clarify this from my understanding, is that Palestinians and Syria from 1948 who were registered as refugees, and, and they fall under the law of 264, was it the one, the law that gave them residency Palestinians can travel on a Syrian passport, but it clearly states that they are Palestinian. Right. So they have a passport.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:29:28):

Yes. I mean, it looks like the Syrian passport with a difference in the shade of color. And it specifically says that this is a traveling document for the refugees of Palestine. And so, yes, yes. Of course, before the war, I was able to use this document to travel to the United States to pursue my studies, to travel to Europe a lot and come back to Syria. It was very easy if you were a Palestinian, to get living in Syria with a job, or as Ambassador Ford remembers for the many trips that we did to the UK as part of the ministry of Higher, you know, with a team from the Ministry of Higher Education. So, yeah, it's very easy to travel if you have a Syrian traveling document for the refugees, than if you have an Egyptian one or a Lebanese one, the main reason for that is that Palestinians can leave Syria and come back to Syria without a reentry permit. If you are a Lebanese Palestinian refugee to Lebanon or to Egypt with Lebanese or Egyptian documents, and you leave Lebanon or Egypt, you cannot go back there without a reentry visa to those host countries. So,

Helena Cobban (00:30:51):

Right. And I believe some of the Palestinian refugees from Syria have actually ended up in Gaza. I don't know how that worked, but you, you read about a few of them. I mean, I don't know how they get that maybe from, from Egypt via Rafah, or

Waddah al-Khatib (00:31:07):

My sister <laugh> <laugh>, my sister is one of them. Yeah. but basically traveling to Egypt and then going through the Sinai peninsula through Rafah and to Gaza.

Helena Cobban (00:31:20):

So she returned to Palestine?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:31:23):

Well, she got married, <laugh> <laugh>. To somebody from Gaza. My mother's side of the family is from Gaza, and she just went to visit through the Red Cross, my late grandma who was dying, and she met her future husband there. And so she moved back to Gaza.

Helena Cobban (00:31:43):

Oh, how interesting. I'd like any of you to be able to explain for me what the kind of political trends are amongst the Palestinians who are in Syria today. Have some of them been fighting with the opposition? Have some of them been fighting with the government? Have some of them been determined not to, not to get drawn into it? How, how does it break down?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:32:15):

Should I go? I don't okay. Yeah. Palestinians I guess like Syrians, have taken various sides in this conflict. There are Palestinians who are fighting with the forces of the Syrian government with the Syrian army. There is the Jerusalem forces as they called under a number of Palestinian refugees who live started mainly in Aleppo in the northern part of Syria, in a refugee camp. And this force is made up of Palestinian refugees, and Syria are fighting with the government. Others have taken the side of you know, the opposition groups the Islamic militants at times, especially the, the Hamas core that used to be in the Yarmouk. And yet a third group of Palestinians took either a I, this is not my conflict type of attitude. I can't say that many, at least, of the people that I know took that attitude or that position. And some just kinda refrained from, from just expressing any view on, on the conflict.

Faedah Totah (00:33:39):

I think it's also important to point out that one of the conditions of Palestinians in Syria is that they do not interfere in domestic politics. And, and, and so they have to be the good ideal refugees where they can engage in Palestinian politics as much as they want, as long as they do not interfere in Syrian domestic politics. And I think what happened in Yarmouk camp is a very good example of where their loyalty was being tested, both by the regime and, and by the rebel forces, where they were kind of forced to take a decision. But Palestinians are kind of caught in the Catch 22, right? Where they're, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. I think that's like the tagline for Palestinians everywhere is that it was very difficult for them to remain neutral, especially when their loyalty was constantly being tested, and especially after decades where their acceptance in society in Syria was to remain politically neutral when it came to Syrian domestic politics.

Helena Cobban (00:34:50):

That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's hard for them, being stateless. They are incredibly vulnerable wherever they are. I mean Palestinians, whether they're in Lebanon or Jordan or wherever they are, they don't have a government that can, their own government, their own Palestinian government that can protect their interests. And, you know, that is the terrible dilemma, the terrible existential threat that Palestinians everywhere have. So it does make them very vulnerable, as you said, to being conscripted or, you know, tested by one side or the other. There is there is conscription for Palestinians into the,

Waddah al-Khatib (00:35:35):

The PLA.

Helena Cobban (00:35:36):

The PLA. Yes. What, could you describe that a little bit?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:35:41):

Yes. part of the package of, of being a Palestinian refugee, of getting free education, free health being treated like a citizen, is that you have to serve in a division of the Syrian army called the Palestine Liberation Army. The PLA. Basically you get military service equal to that of the Syrians only for Palestinian refugees. Palestinian officers are in charge of of those military bases and of the whole structure Palestinian refugees in Syria also pay an additional tax that goes to funding the p I mean, we, we pay taxes like Syrians, but we pay also what, what is called the PAPLO tax that appears on our paychecks always. Now interestingly

Helena Cobban (00:36:36):

With the idea, with the idea being that you would liberate Palestine, right?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:36:40):

Exactly. Exactly. <Laugh> The idea is always that we would liberate Palestine <laugh>. Interestingly though, I mean, during the conflict and beginning with the, I think 2012 when the government started drafting the reserve of the Army the Palestinians were excluded from that. So, if you're a Palestinian who has done your military service in the, in the Palestine Liberation Army before the conflict you will, you are not drafted for the reserve, which is something that some of our Syrian friends complained about, that we were not asked to or not called to service again.

Helena Cobban (00:37:31):

Interesting. Interesting.

Peter Ford (00:37:33):

Can I jump in here and mention leadership? There was no really identifiable leadership of the Palestinian community in Syria, which was partly a reflection of how well integrated Palestinians were into the body politics of Syria but also a reflection of the divisions among the political divisions among Palestinians to some extent Hamas assumed or tried to assume some leadership role. But during the time I was there the Syrian government did not allow Hamas to carry out many political activities in the camps, because there was always an element of mistrust of Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood and the groups, including Hamas, which had affiliations and sympathies with the Muslim Brotherhood. So you, you, you had this this vacuum of of power and influence in the Palestinian community, and they, they, they didn't know which way to turn when the conflict escalated.

Helena Cobban (00:39:05):

That's a great point. And then the other big trend in Palestinian political life Faedah, and, you know, the PAPLO has kind of been on the outs with the government of Syria for a long time, since the 1990s. Though there are some historic Fidai groups, guerilla groups in the Palestinian movement that have had continuing relations with the government of Syria. Isn't that right?

Peter Ford (00:39:39):

Yes. The more nationalist the, the more left wing groups like the PFLP, PFLPGC they remained loyal.

Helena Cobban (00:39:59):

Yes. Faedah.

Faedah Totah (00:40:01):

I, I, I, I think I just wanna say something to what Peter was saying, is that in Syria, that was by design, because especially under Hafez al-Assad, there was no tolerance for any kind of competition or opposition. And, and that's where we see that Palestinian groups who are allowed to operate, have to be on the side of the Syrian government. Right? So, and it wasn't like where you had a lot of leeway or freedom to do anything, because there wasn't really, there wasn't a lot of freedom to act. And so Hamas, because they were against Oslo, because they were antagonistic to Fatah, made them more acceptable and more tolerable to the regime, right? And also, there was that relationship that Hamas had with Hezbollah as a result of Israel expelling a lot of Hamas activists in the early 1990s to Southern Lebanon, where they came in contact with Hezbollah and, and also to Syrian operatives in, in Lebanon as well. So it is a very complicated relationship, and it kind of shifts from one period to another. And, and I believe you had a speaker on last week or something where he talked about how the Palestinian issue has been completely marginalized within the current Syrian conflict. Like nobody talks about it because the Syrians are kind of dealing with their own version of the Palestinian refugee crisis.

Helena Cobban (00:41:35):

That's right. And back to what Peter was saying about Hamas and its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, I, for a long time, and maybe till now, think that there's a difference between Hamas and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in that Hamas, you know, accepted to take part in elections, which they did in, in Palestine in 2006, and did so in very good order as attested to by Jimmy Carter and other international observers. And they won those elections, and then as we know, they got slammed, they got really slammed. Whereas and, and to a certain extent, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was doing the same kind of thing, participating in elections, winning them, and getting slammed, I should notice. But in Syria, I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood ever made that move toward participation in, in democratic life, partly because there was no, you know, democratic life. But even when there were openings in Syria, some political openings, the brotherhood, which was still based largely out of Syria, it was still very dedicated to violent overthrow of the government, which made it rather different from Hamas, although they had, you know, a lot of ideological things in common. Is that roughly a good picture Waddah?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:43:06):

Well yes. First of all, the last participation of the Muslim Brotherhood, Syria, and any political process goes back to the elections, to the parliamentary elections of 1954. When we have this famous parliament of Syria that managed to represent all the trends and currents in Syrian society at the time they didn't fare very well in those elections. There, there were two kind of traditional conservative parties, the al-Hizb al-Watani in Damascus and Aleppo, who got the majority of voices of and the elections. And then there were the Ba'athists, the Syrian nationalists, and the Communists who did, who fared well in, in those elections. The Muslim Brotherhood did not. And that was the extent of their participation in the, in the political process in Syria.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:44:12):

The other thing about the Muslim brotherhood in Syria compared to other countries, that their discourse is often sectarian. This is something that we don't see with the Muslim Brotherhood in, in Palestine or in Egypt. The very nature, the very fabric of Syrian society is so diverse and there's so many different sets and ethnicities and groups that many Syrians have over the decades found the discourse of the brotherhood despite their opinion in, in, in the government or in the whoever's running the country. But they're focused on sectarian discourse has been often found by Syrians to be anything but attractive.

Helena Cobban (00:44:58):

Great. Well, listen, this is amazing to have this rich discussion. I'm gonna open it up now to questions from what you might call the floor, but we don't have a floor <laugh>. So let's bring in Alice Rothchild. And Alice thank you for once again doing the wrangling the questions for us. And if you could pick out a few great questions, and possibly even tell us who's asking them.

Alice Rothchild (00:45:29):

Okay. so this is a question. Why did Khaled Mashal have to leave Damascus? Were Palestinian refugees involved in anti Assad activities?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:45:48):

Okay. Well, Khaled Mashal had to leave Damascus because he was asked to leave the Damascus. I, I guess early on in the conflict there was to my, to the best of my knowledge, there was a request from the Syrian government. Hamas tried through its connections with the Muslim or the Islam in Syria to broker some sort of at least peace or some sort of settlement. Not initially refrained from any kind of initiative in this regard. But not only that, I, I think we do have at this point ample evidence that Hamas contributed to the arming of some of the anti- government forces against Syria. And eventually had to leave the country now Palestinian forces or Palestinians against or fighting against the government. Yes, as I mentioned we had groups Aknaf Bait al-Maqdis, one of them that are of an extreme Islam agenda who fought against the forces of the government in Yarmouk camp, and also in the camps around the city of,

Alice Rothchild (00:47:21):

And this is a question about Black September. Were most of the refugees from Black September ferried by Syria on into Lebanon? No.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:47:37):

No.

Helena Cobban (00:47:38):

I was actually in Lebanon in the mid seventies. Yeah. And, there were a bunch of people who had been in the Palestinian guerrilla forces in Jordan, who came to Lebanon. Some of them stayed in Syria. I know, I, I, I don't think anybody has quantified, you know, how many went to which place, but it's, it's true. A lot of them came to Lebanon oh, through Syria? Yes,

Alice Rothchild (00:48:03):

Through Syria. Okay. would it be fair to say that, oh, go ahead.

Peter Ford (00:48:08):

It's important to note that many of them went to Lebanon because that's where they wanted to go. That's where there were other Palestinian armed forces. There were none in Syria, except those that were part of the Syrian army. But many of those Black September people wanted to go to join their fellow revolutionaries, fighters in Arafat's Beirut.

Alice Rothchild (00:48:41):

Okay. Would it be fair to say that Syrian Palestinians with money and contacts have a significant advantage over most other escapees from Syria, given the need to pay smugglers, document forgers, safe house operators, et cetera, between Syria via Turkey to Western Europe?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:49:02):

Just lost power in my neighborhood.

Helena Cobban (00:49:06):

It looks very authentic.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:49:08):

Yeah. All I need is a couple of candles and, you know, whatever. I, I really have no answer to that. I, I don't know I don't know whether Palestinians were privileged in the sense that if, if I get the question correctly,

Helena Cobban (00:49:27):

I mean, I would say the answer would be that people who have money were able to do it more easily, whether they were Syrians or Palestinians. And it's probably not helpful to identify Palestinians with being richer. It seems like the kind of narratives told historically about Jewish people in Europe, you know?

Faedah Totah (00:49:47):

But isn't that true of any rich people anywhere in the world? They always fare better, even in the coronavirus, if you are wealthier, richer, you can be on your yacht. And so, yeah.

Helena Cobban (00:49:59):

Yeah, you can actually be in a room on your own <laugh>, you know, as opposed to having 10 people in one room. So, yes.

Alice Rothchild (00:50:08):

There are a number of questions about the right of return. This is one who is talking about the right of return in any practical way. Is it just a dream or are some forces trying to figure out how it can be done?

Faedah Totah (00:50:21):

Waddah, do you wanna take this?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:50:23):

I definitely wanna take this. I am living in Syria like a, a, pretty much like a Syrian citizen. I have traveled the world. Perhaps I happen to be among the luckier Palestinian Syrians with education and perhaps with the work that I have. But I don't think anyone in the world has the right to question my right whenever I desire to, to return to Palestine. Now how will this be done politically? What kind of dynamics will be at work to do this? I think this is a very complicated question, but initially it's a basic human right. That people who are displaced and their descendants from their homeland are entitled to go back to their homeland period. I have a four year old daughter who is the world to me.

Waddah al-Khatib (00:51:28):

And I named her after my village in Palestine. And, and so it is just an expression, whether I end up living in a palace in the Gulf, or in a chateau in France, or here in my modest apartment in Damascus. I want to have that right. And guess what, I think many Palestinians, if you give them if you ask them that, we'll say, whether I will go or not, whether I return immediately on the first <laugh> ship or plane or train or not that's not the question. The question is, do I have that right when I decide to,

Faedah Totah (00:52:12):

And I would like to add something to this, that since the signing of Oslo agreement in 1993, there has been,a massive right of return movement in Lebanon and in Syria, where a lot of Palestinians who have felt deserted and then accounted for in the agreement, because the issue of refugees has not been brought up. It's still not brought up. Well, there's nothing going on between Israeli and Palestinians when it comes to the whole peace thing or whatever they call it these days. So there have been more demonstrations, more calls, more emphasis that Palestinians are not gonna give up their right of return. Now, as Waddah said, what form this is gonna take needs to be seen, but there are activists on the ground in both Lebanon and Syria who insist on the right of return.

Alice Rothchild (00:53:11):

Okay. How has Hamas' attitude towards the Syrian conflict evolved and what is it today?

Helena Cobban (00:53:20):

Peter?

Peter Ford (00:53:21):

Volunteer? Here Hamas have been very torn. They were tempted to decamp to Qatar, which was giving them a lot of money. And I think the leadership have remained for now based in, in Qatar. But they have found that they, they've lost their, their role and they have made overtures towards reconciliation with Damascus. And Damascus is, is listening, but in no hurry to reconcile with Hamas, but enter Iran. Iran for wider regional reasons, it seems, would, would like Hamas to be somewhat rehabilitated. And so the Syrian government has been under some pressure from Iran to reconcile with Hamas, as far as I know the situation is unresolved. But with most of the fighting over it, the question has, has changed. I think all the Palestinian camps are now in the hands of the Syrian government, including Neirab, which was recently recovered, the one near Aleppo. Going forward, it's, it'll be very interesting to see how Hamas can rehabilitate itself in the eyes of Damascus. I don't think they can.

Alice Rothchild (00:55:15):

This is a question to Waddah did your sister move back to Gaza before the siege, after

Waddah al-Khatib (00:55:22):

<Laugh>? She has <laugh>. Well she moved to Gaza before the siege. She has lived throughout the siege. She left to Amman only few months ago to visit her son and daughter who were studying. But yeah, she is, she moved from Syria and to Palestine, and she has been living through the hell of being in Gaza.

Alice Rothchild (00:55:58):

And did other Palestinians move from Syria to Gaza during the siege?

Waddah al-Khatib (00:56:05):

I don't have figures on that, but from, you know, the grapevine and from family and the community, I know that the percentage is very small. I mean,

Alice Rothchild (00:56:16):

And was it mostly for personal reasons, like a marriage or

Waddah al-Khatib (00:56:20):

No, we are not from Gaza. 

Alice Rothchild (00:56:30):

I think the internet is not cooperating here,

Helena Cobban (00:56:37):

So maybe you could find another question, send it to another. Okay.

Alice Rothchild (00:56:43):

<Laugh> this is a basic question. Can you explain what religions the Palestinian refugees are?

Peter Ford (00:56:49):

Can I volunteer for, for this one? Because I think this is a very good question. It's important to know that over 90% of Palestinians, whether they're in Syria or, or, or, or anywhere, are Sunni Muslims. And it's no accident that all the official camps in Syria were in predominantly Sunni areas. And that is also a reason why they have been battlegrounds. There are no Palestinian camps in, in, on the coast, except an unofficial, recently established gathering near Latakia. That's the predominantly Alawite area, none in the Druze areas, not in the Shiite areas, not in the Kurdish areas. And the Palestinians have inevitably been attracted towards the opposition, because they also are over 90% Sunni. And,well, I could go on, because personally, I see this whole conflict as a, a conflict for, Sunni supremacy of Syria. The Palestinians have been part of that.

Helena Cobban (00:58:14):

I think I, I wanna jump in a little bit and just note that there are a lot of Christian Palestinians in Damascus in particular, and maybe in Aleppo. And you know, those two cities are real centers of Arab Christian life. So, you know, given that quite, that there are, that Christians are the only minority, essentially in Palestine apart from the, so majority, as you mentioned that, that you, you, you do find a lot of Christian Palestinians in Damascus, and they, you know, there, there's a, a very vibrant Orthodox and Armenian Christian life in that city, to which they can relate.

Faedah Totah (00:59:00):

But, also to categorize the conflict in Syria as Sunni versus Shia kind of ignores the fact that there are a lot of Sunnis who are supporting the regime. And, and I think Palestinians were not really part of this whole sectarian conflict to begin with. And Palestinians, some of them may see currency in having a Sunni regime in Syria, but most of them, that that's not their fight. That's not what they're interested in. So, yeah. Okay.

Helena Cobban (00:59:40):

Congratulations getting, getting your lighting back, that's, that's

Waddah al-Khatib (00:59:44):

Great. Yeah. It yeah.

Peter Ford (00:59:49):

Could, could I, sorry, just come back. This is on that, because if I could reply to Faedah yeah, I take her point that on the government side, it's a mosaic of communities, but how many on the opposition side are not Sunni? I'll tell you 1%. So one side in this conflict is monolithic, and the other is secular and has many Sunnis, as you say. But on the side of the so-called rebels, they are 99% Sunni. That means something.

Waddah al-Khatib (01:00:40):

The, if I may add also, I mean the government, the current government in Syria would not have lasted perhaps through this war were it not for also the support of the predominantly Sunni middle and upper middle class, and particularly in cities like Damascus and Aleppo. Also, the, the other thing is that the, the Syrian army is you know, people talk about the composition of the Syrian army, the vast majority of the soldiers and, and the officers in the Syrian army happened to be Sunni I think it would be a bit over oversimplifying the issue or the issues in Syria to think in terms of, you know, just sectarian divisions and their role. And I agree with Peter. The one thing about the opposition that made many opponents of the government of Bashar al-Assad nervous is that it is the discourse of the opposition from early on, the actions of the opposition all tilt towards a predominantly you know, extremist version ofIslamists, Sunni Islamists.

Helena Cobban (01:02:10):

That is the case. That is the case now. I mean, at the beginning, there may have been other trends in, in the opposition, but the, the, the hard men with the guns now who control everything are Wahhabists.

Waddah al-Khatib (01:02:23):

Yeah.

Alice Rothchild (01:02:25):

And, and there's a, there's a comment that came through the chat from Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh, who's a physician who lives in Israel at this point. I grew up in Palestine and still live in the Galilee. I never was aware of the dichotomy of Sunni and Shia. I never knew to which I belonged. It was a non-issue to add to the commentary here, <laugh>. Yep. Comments on that or just a statement?

Waddah al-Khatib (01:02:52):

Yeah, we can talk a lot about this, but perhaps not <laugh> in this. 

Helena Cobban (01:02:57):

I think we probably need to wrap this up now. It's been an amazing experience to be able to have Waddah and Peter and, and Faedah here and Alice on the West Coast answering the questions. We have two more sessions in this webinar series. Next Wednesday's will be on sanctions and their effects on reconstruction and public health in Syria. I, I actually just added in the public health today, because obviously sanctions have an effect on public health which is a huge part of reconstruction. So on Wednesday, in that session, we're gonna hear from Dr. Issa Chaer and possibly another panelist. Next Saturday's session, which will be the last one in this current series, is currently being planned to cover the issue negotiations over constitutional reform in Syria. But in light of coronavirus, coronavirus and other developments, we may change that focus a little bit.

Helena Cobban (01:04:01):

As many of you know, as you leave today's session, which you can do by clicking the leave webinar button that's at the bottom of your screen. Don't do that yet. Don't leave the webinar yet. When you do, zoom will direct you to an evaluation form where you can provide your feedback on this session. This time, we have a question in the evaluation form in which we ask for your input into what you'd like us to address in that last session of the series. Next Saturday. Please do tell us your ideas and preferences for that, and fill out the rest of the evaluation form as well. Also, today's session, like the preceding seven, has been recorded. We are building a permanent zone on our website where we're posting the links to all the videos and the related materials from this amazing collection of webinars we've been having, so that this can be a continuing educational resource on Syria for people going forward. Oh, I, I need to share a screen, as you know, I'm not very good at this, but here we go. Okay.

Helena Cobban (01:05:08):

Now this is my, okay. You can access our growing Syria resource page by going to that first URL there. Keep checking back as we load more material onto it. And as we get it better organized, as you know now, this is where I always lose. Oh, okay. There we go. We have been providing this whole webinar series at no cost to attendees. So if you find the project worthwhile, please send us as generous of a donation as you can. I want to thank the many people who have already given to us to support this project. If you have not yet done so, you can make a secure donation online or by check, by clicking on the donate button on our website, which is www.justworldeducational.org. I want to thank all of you who've been with us on this learning adventure today, including all of the attendees and participants, our super elf team, and of course, our three great panelists, Ambassador Peter Ford. Thank you so much for being with us.

Peter Ford (01:06:21):

It's been a pleasure.

Helena Cobban (01:06:23):

And Dr. Faedah Totah, thank you for being with us.

Faedah Totah (01:06:27):

Thank you.

Helena Cobban (01:06:29):

And finally Dr. Waddah al-Khatib there in Damascus battling so many things that the rest of us don't have to battle, but doing a fabulous job. Thank you for being with us today.

Waddah al-Khatib (01:06:41):

Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to talk to you again Helena.

Helena Cobban (01:06:46):

So thanks everybody for being with us today. All of you at home. Stay safe and be sure to join us for Wednesday's session on the issue of sanctions and their effects on reconstruction and public life in Syria until Wednesday. Goodbye.