Refugee camps can become permanent

Re “Life slowly returning to a refugee camp,” Nov. 18

Please stop calling places like Nahr el Bared in Lebanon “refugee camps.” Do refugee camps have paved roads and multistory concrete apartment complexes?

Your article stated that the camp’s commercial street used to be “buzzing with shoppers,” and that the camp contained businesses and factories. You quoted one resident as saying that “we used to see our friends and family relaxing on their balconies,” and another who said she had “the most beautiful roses in my garden.” Does this sound like a refugee camp?

Refugee camps have people living in tents, having escaped their country of origin with few of their possessions. Nahr el Bared may have started as a refugee camp but, after 60 years, it’s now a Palestinian town. Scores of Israeli towns started in the same way, as tent refugee camps housing the hundreds of thousands of Jews who fled from Arab countries. The Palestinian towns are still called refugee camps only because they are designated as such by the United Nations. It’s time to break with U.N. terminology, recognize the truth and describe things as they really are.

Frederick Landau

Los Angeles