Why different takes on attacks?

A Lebanese journalist asks why we categorise Lebanese victims as we mourn French ones

Beirut: Because the Lebanese community is one of Australia's largest and oldest immigrant groups, it was not entirely surprising to see Lebanon's flag projected on to Sydney's iconic Opera House as published by a local news site.

But that image of solidarity after last week's Beirut bomb attacks (43 killed, 240 injured in IS suicide attacks) proved to be a digitally altered fake, underscoring the double standard that lurks beneath the myth of global compassion for victims of such attacks.

Lebanese bloggers and tweeps were quick to point out that while monuments across the world had been lit up with the French flag out of respect for the victims of Friday's attacks in Paris, there was no parallel lighting or homage to the victims of twin suicide attacks in Beirut a day earlier.

The irony was not lost on some in the Australian press, who noted that there were three times as many Lebanese Australians as French Australians. And yet, when the country's Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, tweeted "Australians' thoughts, prayers & resolute solidarity with the people of France," there was no mention of Lebanon.

"You'd think if we were able to identify with anyone, it would be with Lebanese Australians - after all, so many of them are among the most beloved in this nation, and have contributed enormously to public life," wrote Chris Graham in New Matilda.

In Washington, meanwhile, US President Barack Obama dubbed the Paris bombings an "attack on all humanity", but once again, as the prominent Lebanese academic Saree Makdisi tweeted, the Beirut bombings were "not worth a mention".

But what was perhaps even more disturbing than the omission of the Beirut attacks from the international stage of outrage was the number of Western news reports that sought to categorise Lebanese victims rather than mourn them.

Initial headlines about the killings in France were objectively descriptive, if not sympathetic: "Paris Attacks Kill More Than 100, Border Controls Tightened" according to the New York Times as Reuters proclaimed: "Disbelief, Panic as Militants Cause Carnage in Paris".

But in Beirut, mere descriptions of the violence and anguish on the streets were not enough. Headlines immediately diluted the massacres with qualifying adjectives that labelled the victims according to their geography and assumed political leadership.

The New York Times announced: "Deadly Blasts Hit Hezbollah stronghold in Southern Beirut," while Reuters headlined: "Two Suicide Bombers hit Hezbollah bastion in Lebanon."

By Habib Battah