That is what Beirut was called when I was in law school in the early 1970s. Some New York law firms had Beirut offices. It was considered a great posting for a young lawyer. These are scenes from the Beirut of those days:
50 years ago today, on April 13 1975, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a church in Beirut, killing 4 Christians.
It was the start of the Lebanese Civil War
It would destroy the Christian-majority country that had been one the best and safest countries in the Middle East 🇱🇧 pic.twitter.com/0mnH5DPmTn
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 13, 2025
What happened? What changed?
No one ever called Kabul the Paris of Central Asia, but you probably have seen pictures and videos of Afghanistan before the Taliban. It was a pretty good place; it looked like part of our world. That country, too, has regressed not just by years, but by centuries.
Is there a common denominator? I wonder what the pro-Hamas rioters and demonstrators at American universities make of all this. Are they utterly ignorant? Or are they on the side of regression to barbarism? I would seriously like to know.
