Editorialist Joseph Samaha commented in As Safir, a privately-owned newspaper, on September 15, on the re-emergence of the “Guardians of the Cedars” in Lebanese political life, describing the group as a “metaphor of the fascist and Nazi ideologies.” Samaha said: “It appears from the official appearance of the ‘Guardians’ through the media that we are in front of a group of youth speaking in a Sufi and extremist manner.”

[The "Guardians of the Cedars" held a press conference on September 13 and announced their return to Lebanon's political life, and released slogans calling on the Lebanese to kill the Palestinians.]

Samaha said: “Without entering in any discussion with the returning party, it is necessary to point out to this mixture of arrogant nationalism that refuses the foreigner, an extremism that is comparable to racism ... and an enemy to leftist thought that such a mixture is a metaphor of the fascist and Nazi ideologies.”

However, Samaha said that the Guardians of the Cedars’ extremist statements do not represent the Lebanese but a small minority that could be ignored. He said: “The comeback of this mixture (Guardians of the Cedars) to the current Lebanese situation makes it impossible to speak in the name of the “nation,” (…) and it puts them alone, and even in confrontation with the other.” - As Safir, Lebanon

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