There's one street in Beirut where all are welcome

The Lebanese government had targeted Hezbollah's robust telecommunications and intelligence assets. Hezbollah called the moves a declaration of war on the group and its ability to fight what it calls Israeli aggression. It responded by launching its military offensive, taking out the political and paramilitary offices of the government's supporters. Then it quickly left. The point had been made: Don't touch our tools of war. The main political groups began talks last week in Qatar.

All have hung their flags along the streets, laying claim to Hamra. There is the black and red of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, green and red of the Amal movement, and yellow and green of Hezbollah -- to the despair of those who live, work and spend time here.

Hamra Street remains one of the last authentic bastions of liberalism and tolerance in the Middle East, after the expulsions of foreigners from the Egyptian city of Alexandria, after the rise of nationalist and religiously exclusive movements, small and large.

Hezbollah certainly wasn't the first to bear arms along Hamra. Yasser Arafat and his men tried to impose their will in the 1970s. Then came Israel with its tanks, followed by a succession of militias, heavily armed, blanketing the walls with posters filled with thick angry lettering, sickles and hammers, cedar and trees and fists, placing brutes on street corners to monitor locals they viewed suspiciously.

But the people of this tiny district of several thousand families insist they are of a different breed. They shudder indignantly when asked whether they're Sunni or Shiite, Christian or Druze.

That's just something you don't discuss here.

"If you visit any of the cafes here, you'll find young people, students, artists from all over Lebanon, all over the world," said Sarjoun Kantar, 25, a freelance journalist with curly hair tumbling to his shoulders. "We are a group in this country with no political voice."

Hamra was mostly farmland west of the old downtown before World War II. It began to swell as a commercial and intellectual hot spot during the 1950s, when it was first paved. A flood of Palestinian intellectuals and merchants fleeing the newly established state of Israel settled here.

A postwar economic boom brought cinemas, galleries, cabarets and nightclubs like the nearby Lido or the Kit-Kat club. Famous for its libertine ways, the area became a magnet for single young professionals. Revelers roamed the streets, pouring out of movie theaters and heading to cafes and cabarets.