Religious Mobilizations in Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon: The Case of Ain al-Helweh

Abstract

Since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, the main popular support of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) during the late 1960s and 1970s, have been experiencing new forms of religious mobilization. These not only denounce the political achievements of the PLO as epitomized in the Oslo agreement of September 1993, but also call into question the modern national consciousness built up by the PLO since its creation in the mid-1960s. While Islamist organizations in the occupied territories, hamas or Islamic jihad, might be seen as an extension of the nationalistic struggle against the Israeli occupation phrased in religious terms, the religious mobilization in the Palestinian camps located in Lebanon violently rejects the principal components of Palestinian nationalism such as a common memory arising from the aftermath of the traumatic experiences of 1948, a feeling of belonging to a specific national community whose homeland is Palestine, or a common perception of the enemy.