Lebanon Should Integrate Its Refugees Before It Boils Over

The marginalization of potentially semi-permanent Syrian refugees is dangerous for Lebanon’s future and detrimental to its economy, which were fragile even before their arrival.

by Kasper van Laarhoven

His four-year-old daughter sleeping over his shoulder, eight pens in his hand. Palestinian-Syrian refugee Abdul Halim al-Attar was one of many who fled the Syrian war and tried to make a living on the streets of Beirut. Of all the small items – flowers, tissues, balloons – that Syrian refugees attempt to sell in Lebanon’s informal economy, it was al-Attar’s pens that ended up in a photograph that went viral last year. The photo sparked an international crowd funding campaign that raised more than $190,000. Eight months later al-Attar runs a restaurant, two bakeries, and a kebab shop in Beirut that employ sixteen other Syrian refugees.