In an extended segment of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live” covering the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, CNN international diplomacy editor Nick Robertson said Haniyeh’s killing meant his “moderate voice will be ignored” because he was “considered a moderate within Hamas.”
Robertson said, “This is going to be an extremely tough test for the new president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian. He’s literally just taken office and he’s literally just seen one of his key regional interlocutors, who came to congratulate him and to witness him take on his new role, assassinated, murdered. He’s seen as a moderate. That’s a relative term. And of course, he’s bound by other forces like the Revolutionary Guard, the supreme leader of Iran. All of these individuals and groups are going to influence his decisions. But will he now be seen as a moderate or will he take a very hard-line stance? And if you look at the impact of the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, I think he was seen as more of a moderate within Hamas. That moderate voice is gone. Will that change anything? Will he be replaced? Will he be replaced by a more hard-line? I don’t know.”
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