Tears of Yarmouk: Palestinian experience haunts Syria camp
In the early days of the Syrian uprising-turned civil war three years ago, the writing on the wall of it becoming an intricate regional and international conflict was there for all to see.
Palestinians in Syria were likely to find themselves a pawn in a dirty war, but few could have predicted the magnitude of the crisis, and perhaps, few cared.
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For Palestinians, anger is compounded. There is the destruction of Syria, a country that despite its many deficiencies, once hosted the "axis of resistance" -- the last battle front for those standing up against Israeli militancy and US hegemony. Regardless of the justification behind their intervention, they have all been discredited. A young Syrian man told me about his cousin, who left Lebanon to fight in Syria and was killed by Hezbollah. "Yes, I cried," he said. "My brother urged me to 'have faith,' but I don't see why crying is a sign of lacking faith."
One could have hardly imagined a scenario in which Hezbollah, once celebrated as the liberator of Arab land, be used in so miserable a context. The cards are getting more and more mixed up by the day, and, once more, all are tainted, and none are innocent. Israeli leaders must be pleased by the spectacle.
Then, there is the siege of Yarmouk, a large refugee camp for Palestinian refugees and working class Syrians located on the outskirts of Damascus. The hermetic siege will be remembered by historians along such infamous memories like that of Deir Yassin, Sabra and Shatila, Jenin and Gaza.
This time, Israel is hardly a direct factor in the starvation, killings and humiliation of tens of thousands of Palestinians undergoing one of the most suffocating sieges in the modern history of warfare. Yes, Yarmouk's residents became refugees because of Israel's ethnic cleaning of Palestinians in 1948, but there can be no justification to the current disgrace experienced at the hands of Arab armies and militias.
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