[dijit]

I'm not entirely sure what people expected.

France is EU therefore considered "the west" by many.

Which is the worse tragedy to you: the death of your wife, or the deaths of 100 faceless strangers whose life you cannot empathise with 3.000KM away.

I mean, it's a shame, and a horrible tragedy, but most people with empathise more with the French who are considered to be living in comparable safety to those who live in Beirut. (which has been a volatile zone for as long as I've been alive).

[mbrock]

That's exactly the problem.

People in "the West" or "Europe" are compared to loved ones while people across the Mediterranean are "faceless strangers whose life you cannot empathise with."

[morgante]

It's also just more accurate. I've been to Paris. I had 10 Facebook friends in Paris at the time of the attacks.

Of course our connection to Paris is stronger than our connection to Beirut.

Likewise, I don't begrudge China when (for example) they cover natural disasters there more than those in the US.

[louhike]

The thing is you can expect the same from people in Beirut, they will lack empathy with people in the west. It needs effort to have equal empathy to someone you have nothing in common than someone having the same kind of life than you.

[mkempe]

For context, people danced and celebrated in the streets of Lebanon and various other Arab countries when the towers were destroyed in NYC.

[cholantesh]

Specifically, a lot of Palestinian Arabs celebrated. The most widely aired footage was from a Lebanese refugee camp that houses Palestinians. In many other places, mass vigils were held, most notably in Tehran.

[philh]

I'd be curious what the media coverage was like outside of the west. What was it like in Lebanon itself? In Japan? In Israel and in Palestine? India? Morocco? South Africa? Argentina?