Why the West Stood in Solidarity With Paris, But not Beirut

The twin suicide-bomb attacks that killed 43 people and injured more than 240 others in Beirut on Thursday were quickly overshadowed by the deadly attacks in Paris on the following evening. It has come as an understandable shock to the people of Lebanon that the West did not respond the same way to their tragedy. Where was the global outpouring of grief over Beirut?

Any honest accounting of why the world appeared to care less about the victims of the Beirut attacks has to account for Western attitudes toward the Middle East—attitudes that are shaped by ignorance, bias, racism, and the media. There are other, less insidious factors, though, that help to explain the selective solidarity shown by the West, although none of them is especially assuring. The timing of the attacks in Paris, for example, coming as they did on Friday evening, was keyed for maximum exposure in the West. There were more attack sites in Paris, and the attacks were deadlier. (In Beirut, a third bomber was killed before his explosives belt detonated.)