Word: beirutization
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Hardly a government in the Arab world does not contain at least one Cabinet minister who is a graduate of the 117-year-old American University of Beirut. Despite nearly a decade of civil war and continuing turmoil, the university has remained a bulwark of learning and an island of relative tranquillity in a scarred and anguished city. Last week it also became a monument to the senseless terror that besets all Lebanon. Its president, Malcolm Kerr, 52, whose life had been devoted to Arab culture and education, was shot dead by two unknown gunmen, apparently for no reason except...
...anonymous caller telephoned the French news agency Agence France-Presse and said that the assassination of Kerr had been carried out by members of the Islamic Jihad, the same Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim group that is believed to have bombed the U.S. and French military headquarters in Beirut last October as well as the Israeli headquarters in Tyre. The caller said that Kerr was "the victim of the American military presence in Beirut," and vowed that "not a single American or Frenchman will remain on this soil...
...caller also said that the Islamic Jihad had been responsible for the Beirut kidnaping of the Saudi consul general, Hussein Farrash, a day earlier. Farrash, 45, had been abducted by seven gunmen who intercepted his limousine as he was driving to work. According to the anonymous message, the diplomat would be tried according to Islamic law, executed, and his body would be "thrown...
...Saudi Arabia bankrolls Syria to the tune of $1 billion a year, and Saudi diplomats have frequently acted as mediators in intra-Arab disputes. In tacit recognition of their status, Saudi diplomats had been exempt from the terror that has made victims of both Arabs and non-Arabs in Beirut. As the week passed, there was no further word on Farrash's fate...
...noble of President Reagan to take responsibility for the killing of the servicemen in Beirut, but for what specific misdeeds is he accepting the blame? If the President is guilty of some ineptitude, perhaps he should step down...