Lebanon’s civil war factions defied simple left-right and religious classification.

Evidence

Occasionally, some small news item might appear to throw doubt on the validity of this picture—for example a report that at the height of the conflict muezzins called from the minarets of Beirut summoning the faithful to battle for the leftist cause; or, more recently, a report that followers of the leftist leader Kemal Jumblatt had avenged his death by murdering between 100 and 200 Christian villagers. If newspaper readers also had been able to follow the Arabic press, they might have found some other discrepant details, such as an interview granted by Jumblatt to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Bayrak in which he spoke warmly of Hitler (“At least he would have saved us from the Zionists”) and of Nazism (“We must not take a strong stand against Nazism, just as we must not agree with everything the leftists say—Nazism should be revived somewhat”). — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1387

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism and to critiques of applying Western political categories to non-Western conflicts.
• SEED: The Jumblatt pro-Nazi interview is a striking, little-known detail that could anchor an essay on how convenient Western framing flattens Middle Eastern politics into left/right.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying the Al-Bayrak interview details and Jumblatt’s actual position — the quote as given is provocative enough to investigate further.