In 1925 Musa Naddaf shot and killed a rival village youth in Saydnaya in the Syrian-Lebanese mountains. A village feud between the two leading families, both Christian, and the outbreak of the Great Syrian Revolution the same year, led Musa to flee the village and live as a rebel fighter against the French mandate. He lived as a fugitive under threat of death sentence from his village rivals and the French mandatory government for 12 years, sheltered by nationalist activists on both sides of the Syrian-Lebanese border. In 1937 the mandatory government pardoned most revolutionaries including Musa but he was still jailed for the shooting of Elias Ahmar. His family hired nationalist lawyer Sa‘id al-Ghazi to defend Musa, and he served a short prison term, after which he immigrated to West Virginia. The story of Musa Naddaf provides a lens to examine a period of intense change in regional identities, communal relations, and anti-colonial struggle in Syria and Lebanon.