The Middle East divide

Lebanon | In the case of Lebanon and Syria, parting ways is good news | Mindy Belz

The ride from Beirut to Damascus is 90 minutes, even counting the cultural divide that must be crossed. Casinos along with cypress and flower boxes line boardwalks facing the deep blue sea. Then the road to Damascus gives way reluctantly to Syria’s dusty expanse, beaten sedans—most of them 1950s models—and shabby apartment buildings weighed down by the week’s wash.

Lebanese love basketball, gambling, tight jeans on women, and Italian shoes. Syrians love backgammon, crowded teashops, and prefer women in hijab, or heads covered.

“Lebanon is one of the most Western countries in the Arab world. Syria is one of the most Arabized. So we complete each other,” a bus driver once remarked back in the days when Syria’s de facto occupation of Lebanon was only a whispered conversation. Now the secret is out and the pair is perfect no more.