German Parliament approves initiative calling for Hezbollah ban

Hezbollah recruits new members in Germany and spreads its antisemitic and jihadi ideology across the country.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Iran's proxies, including Hezbollah, are empowered throughout the Middle East (photo credit: REUTERS)
Iran's proxies, including Hezbollah, are empowered throughout the Middle East
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The German Bundestag approved a non-binding initiative calling on the government to ban activities of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah in the federal republic on Thursday. Two other Bundestag initiatives concerning Hezbollah were rejected.
The initiative revealed that the number of Hezbollah operatives is increasing.
According to the resolution titled “Effective action against Hezbollah" reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, “the followers of [Hezbollah] are around 1,000 people in Germany since a number of years and have showed recently a rising trend.”
According to German intelligence reports, there are as many as 1,050 documented Hezbollah members and 30 mosques and centers operated by Hezbollah supporters.
US Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, said that" We applaud the German Bundestag’s vote today calling for a ban on the entirety of Hezbollah. We stand ready to support the government’s implementation of a ban and will continue to assist in any efforts to deny the world’s most well-armed terror group operating space in Germany.
Today’s vote is an acknowledgement of Hezbollah's destructive international terrorism, and the action needed to stop its activities throughout Europe." The Post has learned that in every meeting with German officials,  Grenell raises the need for Berlin to ban all of Hezbollah. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vehemently rejected a full ban of Hezbollah in Germany.
The city-state of Hamburg’s intelligence agency stated in 2019 that “in Germany there are currently about 30 known cultural and mosque associations in which a clientele regularly meets that is close to Hezbollah or its ideology.” Further, the Bundestag anti-Hezbollah resolution states that Germany’s federal Attorney General in 2018 has launched 36 investigations into individuals linked to Hezbollah. Germany is a principal hub for Hezbollah’s illicit activities, including fundraising for its parent organization in Lebanon as well as narcotics dealing.
Hezbollah recruits new members in Germany and spreads its antisemitic and jihadist ideology across the country.
In 2013, Germany and the European Union merely proscribed Hezbollah’s so-called military wing as a terrorist entity after Hezbollah blew up an Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria in 2012, murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian-Muslim bus driver.
 
The current resolution against Hezbollah was authored by four mainstream parties in the Bundestag: the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union, the Social Democratic Party and the Free Democratic Party.
The US, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Israel and Arab League have designated Hezbollah’s movement a terrorist organization, and Sudan reportedly will close Hezbollah’s office in North Africa. But it is unclear if Merkel will adopt the ban of Hezbollah activities in Germany. A German diplomatic official said in 2018 that a ban of Hezbollah is linked with the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian peace process.