The campaign targeting Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi cannot be dismissed as a passing social media storm. It is a calculated act of intimidation, a sectarian message wrapped in digital vulgarity, and a dangerous attempt to drag one of Lebanon’s highest spiritual authorities into the swamp of militia politics.

Let us be clear: there is no equivalence between Patriarch al-Rahi and Naim Qassem. None.

The patriarch is the head of a historic church, a spiritual authority, and a national symbol whose seat has been central to the Lebanese idea of coexistence, sovereignty, and freedom. People may agree or disagree with his political positions. They may criticize his statements, his sermons, or his public choices. But insulting the Maronite Patriarchate itself is not criticism. It is sectarian aggression.

Naim Qassem, on the other hand, is not a spiritual patriarch. He is the head of an armed drug-dealing cult that operates beyond the authority of the Lebanese state. Hezbollah is not merely a political movement with opinions and voters. It is a militia-party with weapons, fighters, security networks, regional loyalties, and a long record of imposing its will on Lebanon through force and intimidation.

To compare the two is absurd. One carries religious and moral authority. The other represents armed coercion. One speaks from a patriarchal seat. The other speaks from the shadow of rockets, tunnels, and a state-within-the-state. Equating them is not fairness; it is propaganda.

And no one should lecture Lebanon about sectarian tension while defending Hezbollah. Hezbollah and its allies are the masters of sectarian strife. They have perfected the art of inflaming communal fears, weaponizing identity, and presenting themselves as victims whenever their power is questioned. When criticism targets their leaders, they scream about dignity. When their supporters attack Christian, Sunni, Druze, or independent voices, they suddenly discover “freedom of expression.”

This hypocrisy is rotten.

Hezbollah wants immunity in every direction: immunity for its weapons, immunity for its wars, immunity for its leaders, immunity for its propaganda, and now immunity from satire. But when the Maronite Patriarch is attacked, mocked, and insulted, we are expected to accept it as online anger. No. This is the same old method: provoke, intimidate, deny responsibility, and then pretend to be the injured party.

The Lebanese know this method too well. Hezbollah’s political culture has fed division for decades. It has turned disagreement into treason, sovereignty into conspiracy, and criticism into an attack on an entire sect. It has dragged Lebanon into conflicts the Lebanese people never approved, silenced opponents through fear, and poisoned public life with the logic of weapons.

That is why the attack on Patriarch al-Rahi is so serious. It is not about one offensive post or one angry comment. It is about a militia environment that believes every national symbol must bow before its sensitivities. It is about a political camp that treats its own figures as untouchable while allowing its supporters to desecrate the dignity of others.

The Maronite Patriarchate is not a party office. It is not a factional platform. It is one of the pillars of Lebanon’s national balance. Attacking it in sectarian terms is an attack on the delicate coexistence that remains in this country. Those who minimize this campaign are either blind to the danger or complicit in it.

The state must act. The judiciary must investigate. The security services must identify those responsible for incitement and threats. This is not about silencing opinion. It is about stopping sectarian arson before it burns the house down.

Christian leaders must also respond with unity and firmness. Muslim leaders who care about Lebanon must reject this behavior just as loudly. The defense of the Maronite Patriarchate is not a sectarian duty; it is a national duty.

Hezbollah cannot continue to play both arsonist and firefighter. It cannot fuel sectarian strife and then pose as the protector of civil peace. It cannot demand respect for its militia leadership while tolerating attacks on religious authority.

There is no equality here. There is a patriarchate, and there is a militia. There is moral authority, and there is armed arrogance. There is Lebanon, and there is the project that keeps tearing Lebanon apart.