We have just seen which country is truly the West’s beacon in the Levant. The land where one of the official languages is a European tongue and where elections are decided by the Christians (such as the President has to be), who have ensured the defeat of anti-Christian fanatics. ~David Lindsay

This is one of a couple of posts Mr. Lindsay has written recently that I am having some trouble understanding. For example, what can it mean to say that “the Christians” ensured the defeat of anti-Christian fanatics when most Lebanese Christian voters still supported the Hizbullah-allied FPM led by a Maronite? What can it mean to apply the name “anti-Christian fanatics” only to Hizbullah, which is allied with the largest party of Christians, when the March 14 coalition includes the largest Druze party? The Druze community derives from those medieval Muslims who glorified the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim as God on earth, who just happened to be one of the most zealous anti-Christian Muslim rulers in history and who demolished the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The governing coalition also enjoys the patronage of the Saudis, who are not all together Christian-friendly. Of course, this goes to illustrate how clear lines are hard to draw in Lebanese politics, as there are Christians and “anti-Christian fanatics,” if you will, on both sides of the spectrum and in both political coalitions, and it should remind us that we need to be wary of developing rooting interests for any faction in the internal conflicts of another country. If it is not in Israel’s interest to be regarded as the vanguard of the Enlightenment in the region, neither is it good for Lebanon or for our understanding of Lebanon to see the transitory vicissitudes of its electoral politics as having any grander civilizational significance.