In the wake of recent outbreaks of violence in Palestinian refugee camps in the country, the Lebanese parliament is now considering a law that would reform the governance of these twelve camps, where most of Lebanon’s 450,000 Palestinians live. The public discussion over the bill, writes Khaled Abu Toameh, reveals much about Lebanese attitudes toward the Palestinians, and Arab attitudes more broadly:

The Lebanese security forces do not operate inside the [refugee] camps, which have long been the scene of armed clashes among Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic State terrorists. Last month, the Palestinians reached an agreement with the Lebanese authorities to “demilitarize” the Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, which was the scene of armed clashes among rival Palestinian groups in the past two years. The agreement allows the Lebanese army to operate inside the camp, home to some 5,000 Palestinians.

Yet not all Lebanese seem to be satisfied with the way their government is handling the issue of the Palestinians in Lebanon. Many fear that the new law to manage the Palestinian refugee camp is nothing but a disguise to “resettle” the Palestinians in Lebanon, thus tampering with the country’s demographics. . . .

The new law may be a sincere attempt to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon. However, each time a plan is presented to improve the living conditions of Palestinians, whether in any Arab country or in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, conspiracy theorists immediately do their best to derail these efforts. The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, [meanwhile], has called on Palestinians and Arabs to boycott the U.S.-led economic conference scheduled to take place in Bahrain later this month, . . . aimed at achieving economic prosperity for the Palestinians. . . .

The Arab states, for their part, hardly seem to care about the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would not have kept them in squalor in refugee camps, decade after decade. Lebanon says it fully supports the Palestinians in their fight against Israel—but would like to see them leave the country as soon as possible. This is the message Lebanon and other Arab countries are sending to the Palestinians: “We love you and we support you—and stay far, far away from us.”

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.