248- 250 some 104,000 Palestinians fled from northern Palestine into Lebanon in 1948 (Sayigh 1979: 99). Catastrophic situation in refugee camps. Half of the Palestinians displaced to Lebanon remained permanently in the dozen or so camps operated by UNRWA around the country. Palestinians outside the camps, especially from the middle class, had a brighter situation. Some 40,000 actually received Lebanese citizenship between 1948 and 1978. [...] During this period the Palestinians managed to stabilize themselves and regroup. While the relatively wealthy and skilled found Lebanon a land of opportunity, however, the overwhelming majority-poor, uneducated, unkilled - were in a hopeless situation, politically and economically repressed. By the 1960s, Palestinian in Lebanon were uniquely situated to energize the emerging Palestinan resistance movement: they possessed discontented, youthful 'masses' ready to lead. And Lebanon itself, quite schizophrenic on the Palestine question, lacked the coherence either to suppress or to guide the organizations of the resistance. [...] mostly Muslim influx would destabilize the fragile political balance between the religious communities.