Gulfnews , Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Lebanon, where one out of every four residents is a refugee,
rejected a proposal to naturalise the estimated 2 million Syrians if
they chose to stay. On Wednesday, senior
officials responded to a pitch made by United Nations (UN) Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon who argued that refugees should be given the right
to apply for citizenship in host states.

The objective, while
doable in most countries, confronted immense hurdles in Lebanon where a
fragile and increasingly threatened confessional balance holds the
country together and prevents a permanent fissure. Rashid Derbas, the
Minister of Social Affairs, said Ban and other world leaders know all
too well “that Lebanon, with all its factions, sects and institutions,
has a united stance on this regard,” and cannot tolerate such political
diktats. He told reporters after attending a meeting of a ministerial
committee on the refugee crisis chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam:
“We hosted Syrian brothers just the way brothers should behave. We are a
noble and generous people, but we are also patriotic. Out of our
adherence to our patriotism and that of the Syrians, we refuse to give
our nationality to anybody and don’t accept that others abandon their
nationalities as well.”

Foreign Minister Jibran
Bassil, who fears that the overwhelming number of Sunnis among Syrian
refugees will tip the confessional balance of power, lambasted his own
government’s rhetoric concerning Syrian refugees. “We all reject any
naturalisation, but what are the measures that are being taken by the
Lebanese government on this matter?” he wondered.

Although Bassil claimed that he brought up the issue of Syrian
refugees at the eighteenth National Dialogue session that was held on
Wednesday, it was unclear whether he raised the matter in Vienna on
Tuesday, when he attended the latest international conference on the
ongoing Syrian Civil War.

Beyond the rhetoric
associated with rival political parties that used the Syrian refugee
presence to imagine threats from extremist organisations such as Daesh
and Jabhat Al Nusra, among others, Bassil warned that Lebanon will never
kowtow to such pressure, but would encourage all refugees to return to
their land. It was unclear how Beirut could implement such a vision.