Monicha J. Hemmingby

I too grew up in Lebanon. When I was only five years old, Palestinian gunmen, in coordination with local militias, helped ethnically cleanse Christians from southern Mount Lebanon. In September 1983, they and their allies displaced tens of thousands of Christians from the Shouf and Aley regions, slaughtering at least 1,500 people in the process. This was not an isolated episode. In January 1976, Palestinian factions carried out what was then the largest act of ethnic cleansing of the Lebanese Civil War in the coastal city of Damour. At least 300 civilians—women, children, and the elderly—were murdered, and thousands more were driven from their homes. These were Lebanese civilians, killed in their own country by foreign armed groups. @TaghridAlMawed should be ashamed—unequivocally—for two reasons. First, she is falsifying history by portraying Palestinians as nothing more than victims in Lebanon. That is a distortion. Palestinian militias were not passive actors; they were perpetrators. They helped trigger the civil war in 1975, killed thousands of Lebanese Christians, contributed to the fragmentation of the country, and later turned their guns on one another (Abu Musa vs. Arafat) as well as on Lebanese factions such as Shia Amal during the War of the Camps (1985–1988). The scale of violence and devastation they inflicted on Lebanon—a country that had taken them in—cannot simply be erased or rewritten. Second, and even more reprehensible, is her willingness to exploit the deaths of two recently killed individuals in Lebanon for political point-scoring. These deaths occurred in a context entirely unrelated to a civil war that ended 36 years ago. Yes, Pierre Moawad was a Lebanese Forces activist. But unlike Palestinian gangs in the camps, or Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces have long disarmed and operate today as a political party. To circulate images of the newly dead in order to resurrect old conflicts and weaponize their deaths is not just irresponsible—it is morally indefensible. Then again I am not surprised because I expect no better from extremist Palestinian activists. @TaghridAlMawed: shame on you.