Word: lebanonization
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...Fire Next Time Ein el Hilweh is the largest Palestinian camp in Lebanon, with 70,000 inhabitants. Built just outside the southern city of Sidon, it is surrounded by walls and watchtowers and looks like a postapocalyptic penal colony from a Mad Max movie - albeit one decorated with posters of Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Yasser Arafat. The main Palestinian political parties Hamas and Fatah have carved the camp up like gang turf, leaving a no-man's-land as a haven for dangerous jihadist groups...
...Jund al-Sham (Soldiers of Greater Syria), trained al-Qaeda militants in Iraq before moving to Ein el Hilweh. When Jawhar spoke with TIME in March last year, he said that the jihadist factions in the camp were supported by intelligence agencies from the countries that have turned Lebanon into a battlefield. "Anyone who has a project in Lebanon can use the Palestinians to create chaos," he said. Four months later, Jawhar died in a street fight...
Munir Makdah, the commander of Fatah militias in Lebanon and the head of security in Ein el Hilweh, keeps busy trying to survive the regular jihadist attempts on his life - there were five last year alone. Makdah is all that stands between Ein el Hilweh and chaos. When he's not out on patrol he serves as a patron of social programs for children. One of his favorites is the troupe that performs dabka, an Arab circle dance, at festivals around the world. The other is a school for Fatah fighters...
...after attending a demonstration against Israeli attacks on Gaza. He offered them a lesson they are unlikely to forget. "In the past, Jews used to kill us, and no one defended us," he explained. "Today, if the Jews kill us, we kill them." Later, Makdah - who was born in Lebanon and has been a fighter since the age of 12 - vowed that Palestinian leaders negotiating with Israel would never trade away the right of return. "No peace agreement can survive if there is one refugee outside the homeland," he said. The Palestinians' long, dismal wait seems doomed to continue...
...pictures of Lebanon in Crisis...