Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal made a full set of rounds in Beirut on Monday, pressing the proverbial flesh and telling this country's leadership much of what it wanted to hear. Unfortunately, he also engaged in a little wishful thinking and/or expected his interlocutors to do the same. Given Meshaal's reputation for diplomatic and political savvy, it was disappointing to hear him engage in a brand of public relations with which the Arab world is all too familiar.
He all but ruled out the possibility, for example, that the continuing power struggle between his party and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction would spill over into refugee camps in Lebanon - even though it is hard to see how anyone could reverse such a trend if it gathered any momentum at all. He also expressed a conspicuous lack of concern at the intractability of some of the issues dividing Palestine's two main parties. In addition, while he offered rhetorical support for efforts to disarm Palestinian militias with considerable potential to destabilize Lebanon, he tethered this to so many ambitious conditions as to make it valueless.
Despite some very serious problems, particularly the plight of tens of thousands of refugees displaced by the summer 2007 battles with the Fatah al-Islam group at the Nahr al-Bared camp, Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue has made great strides in recent years. Increasing numbers of Lebanese officials have begun to realize that extending decent treatment to the refugee community does not have to be inconsistent with their mantra of "no naturalization." At the same time, more and more Palestinian representatives have come to understand and accept their Lebanese hosts' insecurities about anything that might upset the famously delicate sectarian balance in this country.
Despite these improvements, there is still a dire shortage of straight talk. Beirut is running late on its pledge to reconstruct Nahr al-Bared, in part at least because donor countries have not honored their own commitments. And the Palestinians have made little progress in reducing lawlessness in the camps, in part at least because of the very tensions between Fatah and Hamas that Meshaal sought to play down.
A comprehensive overhaul of the status of Palestinians in Lebanon is in fact required, and steps have been taken toward that end. The Lebanese cannot be asked, however, to complete overnight what a mostly indifferent Arab world has studiously ignored for more than six decades.
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