Have you ever watched that episode of Tom & Jerry when Jerry befriended Tom to plot against their common enemy, the bulldog Spike? This phenomenon, which is much more common than people think, has been around for centuries across various fields, particularly politics.
Among the most unusual and controversial friendships out there, we find the Islamist-leftist alliance. The modern left, which is pro-LGBT, pro-feminism, pro-abortion and secular, sometimes marches alongside traditional Islamists, who are openly patriarchal, radically religious and against everything the left claims to defend.
Islamists and leftists stand on completely opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. If Islamists were to take control, the secular and progressive values of the left would be quickly dismantled. On the other hand, if leftists were to dominate, the traditionalist and religious foundations cherished by Islamists would be eroded in a heartbeat. By nature, one’s rise would mean the other’s disappearance. Yet, in a striking paradox, these two camps are often seen defending one another, setting aside their differences to march together and even vote for the same causes. Their bond? A common enemy: Western values, nationalism and critics of either ideology.
However, the irony is that such alliances are usually temporary and fragile, collapsing once the shared enemy is gone. It’s the same pattern we see in Tom & Jerry: every now and then, the cat and mouse work side by side for an episode or two. But once Spike is out of the way, their natural rivalry takes over again. Politics often follows the same cartoon logic, and nowhere is this more evident than in Lebanon.
Any idea who our Lebanese Tom and Jerry are? It is indeed the controversial friendship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese leftist parties, ranging from the Thawra Left to the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP). Both camps have long viewed US influence, Western values, capitalism and imperialism as existential threats. This shared resistance erases, at least temporarily, the ideological chasm between them.
The story isn’t new. In the 1980s, communists and Islamists fought side by side in guerrilla operations against Israeli forces, despite their starkly different visions for Lebanon’s future. In 2006, during the war with Israel, similar scenes played out as Hezbollah presented itself as the defender of Lebanon, gaining sympathy from secular parties that otherwise opposed its religious dominance.
Even in more recent years, the left has expressed solidarity with Hezbollah during moments of crisis. When French authorities finally released Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese communist militant jailed for decades for the assassination of US and Israeli diplomats, supporters waving red communist flags were seen alongside Hezbollah banners at Rafic-Hariri International Airport.
In Lebanon, this hypocrisy also plays out on social media, where left-leaning pages and influencers dedicate endless energy to amplifying the Palestinian cause and Syrian refugee agendas, often at the expense of Lebanon’s own sovereignty and suffering. They brand themselves as defenders of justice and resistance, yet remain silent when Lebanon is dragged into wars it never chose, when its institutions are paralyzed or when its people sink deeper into poverty.
This friendship might not only be built upon a common enemy but also on a certain level of naivety. Leftist groups convince themselves that aligning with Islamists is a strategic necessity. Yet what they fail to see is that these alliances are rarely partnerships of equals. Islamists, with a clear and uncompromising vision, use the left as fuel to advance their cause, only to discard them once their mission is accomplished. History offers stark reminders of this pattern, where leftist dreams of progress quickly turned into nightmares under the very powers they helped bring to dominance.
One of the clearest examples is the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The revolution began as a broad, diverse movement, with leftist factions, such as the Tudeh Party and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), playing central roles in overthrowing the Shah. Islamists, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, marched alongside them, sharing the same anti-Shah and anti-imperialist rhetoric. But once the Shah fell, the Islamists sidelined the left and turned against their former allies. By the early 1980s, thousands of leftist activists were hunted down, imprisoned, tortured or executed.
China and Iran, on a global level, offer another perfect example of how contradictory these alliances are. On one hand, China’s ruling Communist Party is officially atheist and has launched one of the harshest crackdowns on Islamic identity in modern history, detaining over a million Uyghur Muslims in re-education camps. On the other hand, Iran, an Islamist theocracy that presents itself as the defender of Muslims worldwide, maintains close political and economic ties with Beijing. The hypocrisy is clear: Iran condemns Western nations for alleged Islamophobia while staying silent about China’s treatment of Uyghurs, simply because Beijing serves as a geopolitical ally against the United States and the West.
We conclude that, despite all these differences, both parties share a few similarities: the reliance on force and bloodshed as the final arbiter of power. The pattern remains the same; when the temporary friendship breaks, it is settled not at the ballot box or negotiation table, but through violence.
Another similarity is the hypocrisy they exhibit. As much as some of their marches were peaceful and rightful when it comes to protesting against the war in Gaza, they have been almost entirely silent when it comes to the brutality and massacres of ISIS and other extremist groups against religious minorities, even against moderate Muslims.
The issue here isn’t being emotional or, at times, naive. The problem is that someone is waiting to exploit this emotional and naive side to promote their own agendas, to promote ideas that would never convince an individual if critical thinking were involved. This phase calls for critical thinking, logic and conviction. Because at the end of the day, the real danger isn’t just in who wins power. It is in how easily people can be manipulated into defending the very forces that will one day silence them.
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