Nassif Hitti

The ideas

Eight concepts that recur across his writing, in his own words. The quotations are his, in the original Arabic with a translation. The explanations are the editors'.

The Arab earthquake

In his words
سنوات خمس مضت على ما اتفق على تسميته بالربيع العربى، وأنا أفضل تعبير الزلزال العربى الحامل لارتدادات ما زالت مستمرة ومنتشرة.

Five years have passed since what has come to be called the Arab Spring; I prefer the term Arab earthquake, with aftershocks that are still continuing and spreading.

What Future for the Arab Order? · 25 February 2016

What it means
Against 'Arab Spring' he sets the image of an earthquake: an event whose aftershocks run for years, not a season followed by summer.
Where he applied it
He reads everything after 2011 through it: Syria, Libya and Yemen are aftershocks; 'Somalisation' and the awakening of sub-national identities are the damage. In 2025 he returns to it to read Syria after Assad.
Why it matters
A spring ends; an earthquake leaves a changed landscape. The image tells the reader to expect a decade of instability, not a transition with an end date.
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The barrier that became a bridge

In his words
سقوط الحاجز العراقى أمام إيران عام ٢٠٠٣؛ حاجز الدور الموازن الذى تحول إلى جسر عبور إيرانى أساسى إلى المنطقة.

The fall of the Iraqi barrier before Iran in 2003 - the barrier of the balancing role, which turned into Iran's principal bridge into the region.

What Future for the Arab Order? · 25 February 2016

What it means
His explanation of how non-Arab powers entered the regional order: Iraq had been a balancing wall; after 2003 it became a bridge.
Where he applied it
Iraq after 2003, then Syria after 2011: each time an Arab state weakens, a neighbour's influence crosses it.
Why it matters
It explains the presence of Iran and Turkey in Arab politics by a vacuum rather than a conspiracy. The remedy he draws from it: rebuild the Arab state, and open a dialogue with both neighbours on the logic of the state.
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Hong Kong or Hanoi

In his words
البعض كان يرى فى لبنان «هونغ كونغ» أو «سويسرا الشرق الأوسط» والبعض الآخر كان لبنان له بمثابة «هانوى» لجميع أنواع الثورات أيا كانت عناوينها.

Some saw in Lebanon a 'Hong Kong' or the 'Switzerland of the Middle East'; for others Lebanon was a 'Hanoi' for revolutions of every kind, whatever their banners.

A Policy of Active Positive Neutrality: A Necessity for Lebanon · 16 November 2020

What it means
His recurring image of the Lebanese divide: those who wanted Lebanon to be Switzerland, and those who used it as Hanoi. The slogans change; the game stays the same.
Where he applied it
Lebanon since the 1960s: a banking house for some, a battlefield for others. He returns to it in 2025: the 'Hanoi of the revolution' against the 'Switzerland of the East that has nothing to do with its surroundings'.
Why it matters
Both images, he argues, are ways of avoiding a state. The alternative is neither of them.
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Active positive neutrality

In his words
يستدعى ذلك كله أن نفكّر جميعا فى كيفية صياغة سياسة لبنانية خارجية تقوم على ما يعرف بالحياد الإيجابى الناشط.

All of this calls on us to think together about how to shape a Lebanese foreign policy based on what is known as active positive neutrality.

A Policy of Active Positive Neutrality: A Necessity for Lebanon · 16 November 2020

What it means
His prescription for Lebanon: neither Swiss-style legal neutrality nor isolation, but an active foreign policy that attaches the country to no axis.
Where he applied it
Proposed in November 2020, three months after he left the foreign ministry, and restated in 2025 as the fourth point of his foreign-policy programme.
Why it matters
It gives a small state a foreign policy that is neither alignment nor withdrawal: Arab commitments kept, no axis joined, and the role of 'firefighter' in the region, with Oman as the example.
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The clash of ignorances

In his words
نحن فى حقيقة الأمر كما قال أكثر من كاتب نعيش فى «صدام الفوبيات» أو المخاوف وصدام «الجهالات والأصوليات».

In truth, as more than one writer has said, we live in a 'clash of phobias', of fears, and a clash of 'ignorances and fundamentalisms'.

Terrorism and the Clash of Ignorances · 15 April 2019

What it means
His rejection of the clash-of-civilisations thesis, following Edward Said: civilisations neither converse nor collide; people do. What we live in is a clash of fears, ignorances and fundamentalisms.
Where he applied it
Against Huntington after each wave of terrorism and Islamophobia, and in his case for a centre for the dialogue of religions and civilisations in Lebanon.
Why it matters
If the conflict runs inside every civilisation, between pluralists and those who would eliminate the other, then dialogue is not a courtesy between blocs. It is domestic policy.
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The decision of war and peace

In his words
من أهم معايير السلطة الفعلية للدولة امتلاكها الكلى لقرار الحرب والسلم.

Among the foremost measures of a state's actual authority is its total possession of the decision of war and peace.

Lebanon: The Risks of Waiting and the Necessity of Dialogue · 27 May 2024

What it means
The principle he has returned to in sixteen columns since 2024: there is no real state without full possession of the decision of war and peace.
Where he applied it
First written in May 2024, to describe who held that decision during the war in the south; by October 2024 it was a demand; by 2025 it was the measure he applied to the cabinet's decision on the exclusivity of arms and to the negotiations with Israel.
Why it matters
It turns a slogan about sovereignty into a test that can be checked: who decides when the country goes to war.
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Partial solutions

In his words
الحلول الجزئية تعني مزيداً من الحروب القادمة.

Partial solutions mean more wars to come.

Partial Solutions Mean More Wars to Come · 19 August 2024

What it means
A headline that is also a rule. What he tracks, war after war, is the erosion of the red lines that once regulated conflict.
Where he applied it
The Gaza truces of 2024, then as a rule he applies to Lebanon, Ukraine and Iran.
Why it matters
A truce that leaves the causes in place stores the next war. A comprehensive settlement on known terms ends a conflict; everything else manages it.
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A national consensus, not a 'folkloric' one

In his words
لا دبلوماسية ناجحة وفاعلة إذا لم تستند إلى رؤية لبنان لعلاقاته الخارجية وأولوياته ولدوره، وإلا نكون كمن يتحدث عن عزف موسيقى دون آلات.

There is no successful, effective diplomacy that does not rest on Lebanon's vision of its foreign relations, its priorities and its role - otherwise we are like someone who talks of playing music without instruments.

Essential Elements of an Effective Foreign Policy for Lebanon · 12 May 2025

What it means
His foreign-policy programme for Lebanon, in numbered points: political geography governs national security; a real national consensus, not a folkloric one; and from that, priorities - because there is no diplomacy without a vision.
Where he applied it
His lecture at Saint Joseph University in April 2025, published as seven points.
Why it matters
Foreign policy begins at home: without real agreement on priorities among Lebanon's communities, the diplomat is left, in his phrase, playing music without instruments.
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