Politics & Power Quote by Rafic Hariri

A sentence that stumbles on its own grammar can still land like a diplomatic blade. Hariri’s line, awkwardly phrased as it is, performs a familiar statesman’s maneuver: it reframes Israeli action not as a response to Palestinian violence or politics, but as an assault on something internal to Palestinian leadership - “that part” - the element that makes negotiation possible. The vagueness is the point. By refusing to name the “part,” Hariri leaves space for multiple readings: the pragmatic faction around Arafat, the security apparatus cooperating with agreements, the moderate impulse that could sell compromise to a furious public. In each case, the accusation is the same: Israel is weakening the very interlocutor it claims to need.

The opening hedge, “on the other hand,” signals a balancing act. Hariri is speaking into a media environment and a diplomatic arena that demands “both sides” framing, but he uses the structure to pivot into a sharper moral claim. It’s not symmetry; it’s a setup for indictment.

Context matters: Hariri operated as Lebanon’s prime minister under Syrian tutelage, navigating Arab solidarity, Western alliances, and the aftershocks of the Oslo era and the Second Intifada. His intent is to keep Palestinian leadership legible as a political actor rather than a security problem - and to warn that targeting or humiliating that leadership produces a vacuum filled by harder, less governable forces. Subtext: if you crush the moderates, don’t be surprised when moderation disappears.