Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for January 24, 2016
Newsline: Norwegian Ambassador to Lebanon meets with Hamas chief
Norwegian Ambassador to Lebanon Lene Lind met last with Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official in Lebanon who functions as the organization’s representative in the country. According to the Hamas daily Palestine, the two discussed the status of Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, as well as UNRWA’s intentions to limit its services to the Palestinian “refugees.” UNRWA, the UN body working with the descendants of Arab residents who left Israel in the 1948 War of Independence, has completely different protocols than UNHRC which works with all other refugees. UNRWA recipients “inherit” refugee status indefinitely, and it does not integrate or naturalize them into their host state. The Norwegian Ambassador promised to pass along the Hamas representative’s demands to continue the economic support and services to her government. Lind likewise “expressed her understanding for the suffering of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon,” according to the report. Palestinian Arabs have numerous limitations placed on them by Lebanon, including regarding professional fields they can engage in. The Ambassador previously served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Norwegian Embassy in Tel Aviv from 2005 to 2009, where she also was the “principal diplomatic liaison for the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, Palestine,” according to the Norwegian Embassy in Lebanon’s website.
Diplomatic Briefing 