Four documentarians look back at Palestine, and Lebanon

BEIRUT: The peoples of Lebanon and Palestine have an ambivalent relationship. In the years since the terms "Lebanon" and "Palestine" were assigned their 20th-century political meanings, they have accumulated meaning, just as the experiences of their citizens have diverged. The animosities souring the relationship between some Lebanese and Palestinians dates from the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The Nakba (imperfectly translated as "Catastrophe") propelled waves of refugee migration north, refugees who were politicized in the 1960s - which in its most recent variation has acquired a jihadi hue, thanks to the three-month-long struggle between the Lebanese Army and the multi-national militant group Fatah al-Islam. Recent political history has blackened an older, more amicable relationship that preceded the arrival of... [read full story]