Thanks for sharing this thoughtful critique Holly.
I think these are all solid points, Holly. But there’s another reason to add to your list: after years and years of civil war and sectarian violence, we have tragically come to expect chaos, murder and mayhem, even on a catastrophic scale, in Lebanon and much of the greater Middle East region. The same cannot be said for Paris — or the rest of Western Europe.
This racism bias is NOT a White thing alone. As a white man, a jew, and an English boy raised in America who has traveled extensively through Southeast Asia for over 15 years I have been guilty both of being on the giving end, despite my efforts not to, and on the recieving end of racism from every color.