Nadim Gemayel hits back at Nasrallah over 1975 remarks

MP Nadim Gemayel of the Kataeb Party on Tuesday snapped back at Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah over the latter’s accusations regarding the side that started the 1975-1990 civil war.

“Nasrallah is distorting history and the facts. The war in 1975 was decided by the Palestinian factions that wanted to eradicate Lebanon and wanted Lebanon as an alternative homeland,” Gemayel said in a post on the X platform.

“Kataeb, the Lebanese Forces and the Lebanese Front took the decision of self-defense and confronting (then-Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser) Arafat and his cronies, after he waged his war from Kahale to Tal al-Zaatar and from Karantina to Qnat and entire Lebanon,” Gemayel added.

Kataeb and its allies “took the decision to confront the mercenaries and the invaders who waged the war and rebelled against Lebanon and its army and institutions,” Gemayel went on to say.

“Our resistance did not launch fictional assistance fronts that bring destruction and ruin for propaganda objectives. Defense, resistance and resilience fronts were imposed on it and it triumphed. Amid what’s happening, Nasrallah is insisting on deviating attention from the series of his defeats and the failure of his axis -- the axis of terror,” Gemayel said, accusing Nasrallah of “launching a preemptive war on the Lebanese interior through incitement and spreading hatred and strife.”

Nasrallah had on Monday lashed out at the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Party in connection with the case of LF’s Jbeil coordinator Pascal Sleiman, who was murdered Sunday by a car theft gang in the Jbeil region.

“After the LF’s coordinator in Jbeil was kidnapped yesterday, the LF party, Katab and malicious TV stations decided that it was Hezbollah who kidnapped him and we heard very detestable sectarian remarks that remind of civil war,” Nasrallah said in a speech commemorating slain Iranian general Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

Hitting out at the LF and Kataeb for criticizing Hezbollah over the war and peace decisions, Nasrallah accused the two parties of starting the civil war in 1975.

“Who took the decision back then? Was it the state or you?” Nasrallah asked.