Analysis

No Refuge: Amid War, Scapegoating of Syrians Continues in Lebanon

Lebanese politicians still blame their failures on marginalised refugees

November 12, 2024

Executive Summary 

Syria has suddenly become a haven of safety, or so it would seem if one listened to recent Lebanese political rhetoric. Leaders from various sides in Lebanon’s fractious political landscape have coalesced around this narrative shift since mid-September, when Israel’s ongoing military escalation led to almost 350,000 Syrian refugees in the country fleeing back across the border into Syria. The reality, however, contrasts starkly: Human Rights Watch recently documented that refugee returnees face “the blatant risk of arbitrary detention, abuse, and persecution.”  

Why, then, Lebanese politicians’ escalated praise of security and safety on the Syrian side of the border? As this paper will show, it is the latest cynical manifestation of their years-long campaign against Lebanon’s Syrian refugee population, one that has denigrated and dehumanised these refugees, including scapegoating, marginalisation, and violence, for Lebanese leaders’ political expediency.  

The still-unfinished Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, had led to some 1.5 million Syrian refugees fleeing to Lebanon. After Lebanon entered economic collapse in 2019, Lebanese politicians’ vitriolic attacks against this population became acute. This appears to have been a concerted campaign to deflect blame from the political class and to focus the public’s anger elsewhere. While local and international media have previously suggested this was the case, these claims had not been backed by empirical data – until now. 

Over the past two and a half years, Badil has tracked what Lebanon’s leaders say across print and social media. Our monitoring has shown repeated instances where spikes in political and economic instability within the country have coincided with an uptick in anti-Syrian rhetoric, suggesting a deliberate strategy of blame-shifting. Since the Israeli military escalation in mid-September, this narrative has morphed from castigating the refugees to framing the fact that some have returned as a signal that Syria is now safe for all to go back. 

Numerous rhetorical examples exist from members of the Lebanese government and political elite. These include Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs, Hector Hajjar, suggesting that conditions in Syria might now be safer than those in Lebanon; Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) MP Gebran Bassil, who framed the wave of displacement as an opportunity for Syrians to return; and Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea, who asserted that the return of refugees proves there are safe areas in Syria. These assertions are, however, both misleading and dangerous: Syria remains an ocean of violence and persecution, not an oasis from such. 

Lebanese politicians’ current rhetorical line hasn’t wholly divorced itself from the previous pattern of denigration – Syrian refugees, for example, have been blamed for being agents to Israel and unsanitary vectors for contagious disease spread. As well, the new narrative framing will likely continue to engender the hostility of the previous one, creating even greater unsafety for the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who remain in Lebanon and adding more dry wood to a social tinderbox.  

The Badil Media Monitoring Database: Tracking the Blame Game 

Before the Israeli military escalation against Lebanon in mid-September, the fractious Lebanese elite could agree on little. Among the few points on which they and their propagandists did find common ground, however, was that the country’s Syrian refugees were to be blamed for almost everything – from rising petty crime, outbreaks of violence and bread shortages. Numerous reports and studies had shown these claims to be patently and demonstrably false. Adhering to the truth, however, has rarely been a concern of the Lebanese elite. What interests them is maintaining support within their sectarian constituencies and, thereby, their domain over the power centres within the state apparatuses through which they plunder the public wealth.  

Years before the ongoing war in Lebanon erupted, the political and banking elite’s greed had driven the country into one of the worst economic crises in modern history, causing the currency to collapse 98 percent in value and banks to withhold life savings from millions of people. The elites’ survival was predicated on having blame focused elsewhere, and there could be no better target for such scapegoating than the roughly 1.5 million Syrian refugees who had been residing in Lebanon. Latent social prejudices against Syrians provided the coals to build the fire, while the refugees themselves lived largely in social and economic precarity with little recourse to legal protections nor the ability to mount a public defence.  

This public maligning of Syrians found unfortunate resonance with segments of the Lebanese population. Anti-Syrian incitement at the community level was used to justify repressive policies against the Syrian refugee community and gave carte blanche to mob violence. By collectively branding all Syrians either as a security threat or the driving force behind the country’s successive calamities, the political class rallied nationalistic sentiments to justify stringent anti-Syrian security measures. These included prohibitive Lebanese laws that excluded Syrians from working in most sectors and accessing healthcare, as well as restricting their freedom of movement within Lebanon.  

Source: The Badil Media Monitoring Database - 1 March 2022 to 28 October 2024

To properly analyse these narrative trends, Badil established its media monitoring database in March 2022, which tracks public statements and slogans made by Lebanese political leaders, across social and print media. The database monitors the frequency and thematic content of what politicians are saying and categorises them into a wide variety of themes and sub-themes – such as, for the purposes of this paper, ‘Refugees/Migrants’ and ‘Syrian refugees’. This has given Badil insight into narrative trends over time, and in relation to specific events. 

For instance, Badil’s database recorded 1,324 statements targeting Syrian refugees made by Lebanese politicians between 1 March 2022 and 28 October 2024. Of these, 412 (31%) were made by FPM members and 250 (18%) by the LF party. These figures indicate that these two Christian-majority parties led the way in demonising Syrians. However, as illuminated below, political parties across the spectrum did little to defend the refugees because they, too, benefited from the public distraction. 

The Bread Crisis 

The first documented instance when Lebanon’s economic crisis coincided with increased anti-Syrian political rhetoric, and increased discrimination and violence towards Syrians, came in July and August 2022. During that period, bread shortages peaked, with bread being  four times more expensive than usual. 

There were multiple reasons for this shortage. The catastrophic 2020 Beirut port explosion destroyed Lebanon’s primary wheat silos and most of its reserve stores of grain. Lebanese political parties had since been swapping blame for the disaster, stalling the investigation while making little headway in replacing the ruined infrastructure. This, coupled with rapidly rising food and fuel costs, left the country exposed when the Russia-Ukraine war led to volatility in global wheat supply in spring 2022. Notably, Lebanon imported more than 60 percent of its wheat from Ukraine.  

In response to the bread shortages, Lebanese politicians blamed Syrians for driving Lebanon’s economic collapse. Syrians were accused of stealing bread or, according to Amin Salam, Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade, “consuming 400,000 loaves of bread per day”. The monthly average number of anti-Syrian statements jumped in July and August to 31, compared to the average of 8.5 monthly statements from March to June. A renewed wave of discrimination and violence targeting Syrians followed, including physical assaults, municipalities imposing curfews, and Syrians being denied the ability to purchase bread from stores.  

This elevated rhetoric against Syrians persisted through September and October, with each month averaging 28 political statements targeting the group. Notably, this came as the political impasse to elect a new president became acute. President Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022, and the lack of consensus on a new candidate has since thrust the country into institutional paralysis. 

Currency Collapse 

In March and April 2023, respectively, the value of the Lebanese lira sank below the symbolic threshold of 140,000 per US dollar, a new historic low, while inflation had spiralled to an all-time high of around 270%. As if on cue, Badil’s database reveals a surge in anti-Syrian political rhetoric during this period. For the three months between March and May 2023, 171 political statements targeting Syrian refugees were recorded – an increase of 434% from the 32 statements made in the previous three months (December 2022 to February 2023). 

Common narratives embodied in these statements linked the Syrian refugee crisis to Lebanon’s monetary and economic issues. For example, Hector Hajjar, member of the FPM and Minister of Social Affairs stated: “we refused to give the Syrian refugees aid in dollars because the Lebanese people reject this exodus.” 

 Meanwhile, Hussein Hajj Hassan, Minister of Industry and member of Hezbollah, stated: “Today, Lebanon bears the burdens of the Syrian displacement, and we have no problem with the displaced as people, but we bear the burdens of this displacement economically and financially, and the countries of the world have not given Lebanon any compensation for bearing these burdens.” 

Opportunistic Fear Mongering Leading to Violence 

The political class has used violent incidents between Lebanese locals and Syrian refugees to double down on their rhetoric. This was evident following clashes between Syrian and Lebanese communities in Aramoun-Aley, Mount Lebanon, on September 30, 2023, and subsequently in Beirut’s Doura area, five days later. 

Badil’s database shows that 36 political statements targeting Syrians were made between 30 September to 6 October 2023. These cast Syrians as a threat to stability and instigators of violence in Lebanon, such as: “The Syrian displacement crisis is worsening, and the danger of displaced people who are above the law constitutes a serious warning, especially after the Aramoun-Aley incident yesterday.” (Farid Al Khazen, MP for Keserwan district). Overall, there was an increase of 112% in the number of anti-Syrian political statements compared to the weekly average (17) in September 2023. 

 

To date, however, the most serious escalation in anti-Syrian rhetoric, discrimination, and violence came on 7 April 2024, after members of a Syrian gang abducted and eventually murdered Pascal Sleiman, a member of the Lebanese Forces party, during what authorities later described as a botched carjacking. According to Badil’s database, Lebanese politicians made 158 statements targeting Syrian refugees in the three weeks following the incident (8-30 April). This marks a significant increase of 868% compared to the monthly averages in the preceding months: January (11), February (18), and March (20). 

Whether the exponential surge in political statements reflected politicians’ intentions to either actively fuel or capitalise on high tensions – or a mixture of both – following the Sleiman killing, many violent incidents were reported in predominantly Christian areas across Lebanon. This included community members creating impromptu, informal checkpoints to ambush Syrians, storming and looting Syrian homes and businesses, and issuing threats ordering undocumented refugees to evacuate residential areas immediately.  

However, the content of most of the political statements between 8 April and 30 April did not address the Sleiman incident itself. Instead, politicians professed concerns over sectarian divisions between Christian-Shiia and Syrian-Christians, the overcrowding of Syrians in Lebanese prisons, the demographic threat stemming from the rise in the Syrian birth rate, and the insufficient support provided by the international community to help Lebanon manage the refugee burden it is shouldering. This diversion reflects politicians’ manipulation and exploitation of high-profile incidents, like the Sleiman killing, to scapegoat Syrians for an array of controversial and highly sensitive socio-economic and political problems. This includes evoking the collective memory of the Civil War. Indeed:  

“Unfortunately, in Lebanon, blame shifting works really well with Syrian refugees because of the difficult history that Lebanon has had with Syria; as a result, many Lebanese equate Syrian refugees with the Syrian regime that occupied Lebanon for quite some time,” according to Nadine Kheshen, human rights lawyer and advocate for Syrian and Palestinian refugees’ rights in Lebanon and researcher on refugee rights with the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS). 

Lebanese Media: Aiding and Abetting 

The political elite’s demonisation of Syrian refugees has found a willing accomplice amongst many Lebanese media outlets. Lebanon’s media has traditionally been controlled by a small subset of individuals affiliated with politically exposed people (PEP) and political parties. For example, Al Manar is Hezbollah’s official TV channel and MTV is owned by the Murr family, historically associated with Christian-dominated political parties. Nonetheless, since the 2019 economic crisis, media companies have increasingly sought to affiliate themselves with PEP as a means of sustenance, and in exchange, the political elite has benefited from propagating its own agenda via the media. 

Dalal Harb, spokesperson at UNHCR Lebanon, highlighted in an interview with Badil how local and social media often perpetuate stereotypes of, and disinformation about, Syrian refugees.  

“These stereotypes are not only inaccurate but also perpetuate divisiveness, breed hostility, and could potentially escalate to civil unrest and conflict”, Harb said. Common depictions of Syrians in the media include how they are aid-dependent, have many babies, and are uneducated.  

Examples include the announcements by and support for the ‘Undo the damage’ campaign by the Lebanese television channel MTV. The Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry were also criticised for broadcasting and sponsoring ads “stoking hatred” towards Syrian refugees in the country.   

More recently, the social media post by Jamal Rayyan, an Al Jazeera anchorman, was feared to have stirred further tensions in Lebanon. Rayyan claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that Syrian refugees were acting as agents for Israel, allegedly providing information on Hezbollah leaders’ locations, including Hassan Nasrallah. The post, seen by Badil, has since been deleted by Rayyan. 

The International Shakedown 

The hostile political rhetoric regarding the Syrian refugee crisis helped distract from how the political class had not developed any meaningful long-term solutions to Lebanon’s economic collapse. The closest thing to an identifiable policy among Lebanese politicians is to blame international aid agencies for supporting Syrians while simultaneously pleading for more bilateral aid. As explained by Carlos Naffah, an expert in refugees and border policies in Lebanon, who spoke with Badil: 

“The Lebanese government has done nothing to address the Syrian matter – it has neither created a vision nor coherent policy, and it hasn’t taken the initiative to rally the international community to unite under a clear direction to effectively tackle the crisis through a policy-driven approach.” 

In May 2024, Badil recorded a staggering 331 anti-Syrian political statements, representing an over 10-fold increase compared to the typical monthly averages over the previous two years (2022: 16; 2023: 33), which coincided with the annual “Brussels Conference” for Syria and the EU announcing a €1 billion aid package to Lebanon. The conference brings together international donors, UN agencies and regional governments each year to set priorities and fundraise for the humanitarian response to the Syrian conflict and displacement. The 2023 Brussels Conference guaranteed Lebanon €752 million in grant contributions, in addition to upfront payments of €121 million for 2024 for bearing the brunt of the Syrian refugee crisis. 

Many of the defamatory statements recorded by Badil directly criticised the international community. They were made by Lebanese politicians across the political spectrum, amounting to a collective effort to blame the international community for its “miserable” offering of “poisoned” euros. Politicians lamented the amounts promised: “What was recently raised regarding the issue of the million euros must be an introduction, because Lebanon’s right amounts to an amount of up to $50 billion that Lebanon bears as the cost of displacement,” said Kassem Hachem, an MP from the Amal Party. Some also used threats, such as Simon Abi Ramia, an FPM MP: “We are not prepared to play the role of border guards to protect Europe from waves of Syrian displacement”. 

The surge in anti-Syrian political statements preceding high-profile conferences can be interpreted as an attempt by the political elite to try and maximise the financial benefits Lebanon might receive from the international community by emphasising the burden of the Syrian crisis on the country. Notably, since the refugee influx began in 2011, the Lebanese government has received over $3 billion and €867 million in humanitarian assistance from the US and EU, respectively. 

Calls to stop funding support for displaced Syrians in Lebanon were also prominent in the flurry of political statements in early May 2024. In particular, Christian politicians and media made libelous accusations against UN agencies, claiming that they were aggravating the Syrian refugee crisis and creating instability within Lebanon, as well as preventing the deportation of Syrians back to Syria. This exploited the widespread perception that Syrian refugees receive preferential treatment by international organisations compared to increasingly impoverished Lebanese citizens, playing on the perceived divisions between the “haves” and “have nots”.  

“It seems that one of the main tactics of the Lebanese government during the past two years is to use scapegoating, hate speech, and misinformation of Syrian refugees just before the Brussels Conference,” said human rights lawyer Nadine Kheshen to Badil. “On the one hand, we can’t blame the Lebanese government for pleading for more money – all the refugee-hosting countries are employing the same tactics; and it is true that the Western states are not doing their fair share of taking care of the refugee crisis – such as offering enough resources to host countries or taking on more resettlement and validating asylum claims. However, since the 2019 economic crisis, the Lebanese government is desperate for funds; and really, the government needs to do a lot more to address the refugee crisis.” 

Political narratives around international aid and Syrian refugees attempted to shift the blame to external forces, accusing international organisations and foreign governments of using refugees to undermine Lebanon. This rhetoric attempted to absolve local leaders from responsibility and instead paint them as the victims of global conspiracies, diverting attention from politicians’ lack of accountability and resistance to reforms. 

Looking Ahead 

Badil’s media monitoring demonstrates repeated instances when Lebanon’s economic and political crises have coincided with surges in anti-Syrian rhetoric, suggesting a deliberate tactic of blame-shifting. This scapegoating has maintained the political elite’s power and guaranteed inward flows of international grant money while leaving the root causes of Lebanon’s economic and social collapse to fester. 

While the frequency of statements targeting Syrian refugees in the country have reduced since September 2024, marking the start of the recent Israeli escalations in the country, the new narrative line – that Syria is safe to return to – will likely continue to foster hostility against those who remain. As such, it is plausible to foresee that whenever the guns go silent in the ‘day after’ the war, Syrian refugees will again become tools for the Lebanese government’s blame-shifting ploy as the state grapples with the mammoth task of post-conflict reconstruction.  

 

Refugees Social protection Syria War

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