Movable Modifier

Word mavens get a linguistic thrill when a skillful politician
manipulates the language with great deftness and an alert
reporter catches him at it.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, maneuvering his way through
the sticky wicket of the Middle East, wanted to stress the need to
maintain an international coalition, including Arab states, when
talking to Israel's Ariel Sharon – while getting an antiterrorism
message across to the Palestinians' Yasir Arafat.

Accordingly, he spoke in Jerusalem to Sharon of an "international
coalition against terrorism in all its forms" and later the same day,
with Arafat in Gaza, spoke of "a coalition against international
terrorism." He switched the placement of the adjective
international from modifying coalition (acceptable to the Israelis)
to modifying terrorism (acceptable to the Palestinians).

"It is a distinction with a difference here," wrote The New York
Times's Jerusalem bureau chief, James Bennet. "Mr. Sharon and
other Israeli officials like to identify their efforts against
Palestinians with the American attack on the Taliban," he noted,
"and they reject as hair-splitting any distinctions between
'international' terrorism and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Palestinian officials, of course, prefer not to be lumped in with the
Taliban."

Thus, merely by moving his modifier, Blair pleased both camps.
To Israelis, his international modifying coalition included them in,
while to Palestinians, his international modifying terrorism was
taken as differentiating their local warfare from the global
terrorism of Al Qaeda. Subtle move by the politician, intended not
to be noticed; good catch by the reporter.