US Christians can’t ignore the suffering of Muslims

BEIRUT: The airport here is in territory controlled by Hezbollah. Driving across Beirut, you see affiliations declared by large posters hung on lampposts: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Shiite areas, assassinated leader Rafiq al-Hariri in Sunni neighborhoods. Some Palestinian camps display images from Hamas; others from Fatah, including the long-dead Yasser Arafat. “His eyes,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in a rather different context, “dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”

There is the Beirut of Gucci purses, designer sunglasses and Ferrari dealerships. But all this exists like a bubble on the surface of an armed truce among religiously defined groups: Christian, Shiite and Sunni. Each tradition is defended by the functional equivalent of mafia families, providing security, dispensing jobs and favors, and dividing up public offices.