IT’S RAMADAN, a time when magazine editors typically rage at their staffs (and often in their editors’ notes) about laziness, lost productivity and the difficulty of writing, editing, photographing and designing without the essential lubricants nicotine and caffeine.The ‘Two Simonas’ of Italy got demonstrations, vigils and the cover of Time magazine, but six Egyptians face beheading in Iraq, and we continue to obsess over the price of yawmeesh Ramadan?

I’m no exception, but my thoughts these past few weeks have (occasionally) been distracted by a different type of outrage outrage over a lack of outrage, I guess you could say.

What, exactly, does it take to inflame this country of ours? (If, for one moment, you’ll permit an immigrant wonder on behalf of the nation.)

Not terrorism, it seems. Last month’s bombings in Sinai were hardly as stunning as was the silence that followed them. At least 34 dead, many of them blown into pieces so small it will take DNA testing to bring closure to their families, and we somehow move beyond it in a matter of days?

Have we become that immune to images of death and gore? Were we so focused on self-pitying misery (No cigarettes! No coffee! Quick! Get your work done before Ramadan!)that we had no more than a day or two’s compassion to spare?

I suspect the answer is somewhat more sinister: The bombing of the Taba Hilton, the first terror attacks to strike Egypt since the Luxor massacre of 1997, was so easy to forget because it targeted Israelis. Because it’s too easy and too comforting to look at the attacks from the remove of Cairo or Alexandria or even Luxor, and say, “Well, it’s an Israeli-Palestinian thing.”

The ‘Two Simonas’ of Italy got demonstrations, vigils and the cover of Time magazine, but six Egyptians face beheading in Iraq, and we continue to obsess over the price of yawmeesh Ramadan?

Put aside the fact that as many Egyptian Muslims and Christians as Israeli Jews may have died in the attacks. Forget that it will hurt our tourism industry, not Israel’s. Never mind that it’s the image of Egypt, the Arabs and Islam once again taking a beating on the international stage, and ask yourselves this: Are we so alien to one another that we cannot worry for more than a day or two when people whose greatest sin was to have gone on vacation die violent deaths at the hands of maniacs on Egyptian soil?

Have we become so wrapped up in images of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians that we cannot separate the politics from the people? Does it have to happen in Cairo for us to care?

As another of last month’s headlines suggests, perhaps the lack of outrage wasn’t a factor of politics and proximity, but simply because we’ve grown callous. It’s a sad day when the kidnapping and threatened execution of six Egyptians who have done nothing wrong save going abroad to try to feed their families provokes no demonstrations or prayer rallies, few outraged editorials demanding to know what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was doing to get the captives released, and even fewer lobbying campaigns.

Six engineers working for Orascom Telecom’s subsidiary in Iraq faced beheading, and we worried about the price of yawmeesh Ramadan. All six eventually go free, and we get little more than a photo and cutline in most newspapers. Compare that with the case of “The Two Simonas,” the Italian aid workers taken hostage the previous month: They got rallies and vigils and front-page headlines around the world and, once set free, the cover of Time magazine.

OK, but we care about what happens at home, right? I’m not so certain. A few days before Ramadan, a Cairo man strangled his two-year-old son to retaliate against his estranged wife when she refused to return home for Ramadan, and all it merited was a few column inches on the cops ‘n crime page for us to skim while wondering what to have for iftar. No debate on child welfare. No questioning whether the new Family Court might have averted tragedy had it been up and running in time.

All three “Peoples of the Book” have a holiday based on sacrifice and deprivation, but what good is it to give up cigarettes or postpone a meal when we can’t feel sympathy for those whose trials are far greater than our (temporarily) self-imposed sacrifices?

OK, perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic. Maybe the picture wouldn’t have seemed so bleak had I had a cup of coffee and a couple of cigarettes as I wrote this, but I can’t help wondering: Doesn’t God demand better of us, regardless of when our faiths celebrate a holy month?

The Editor et