British politicians call for full ban of Hezbollah

EU moves toward terror listing of group's military wing, following evidence Hezbollah committed terrorism on European soil.

By JONNY PAUL, BENJAMIN WEINTHAL JERUSALEM POST
Bulgaria bus bomb 390 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Bulgaria bus bomb 390
(photo credit: REUTERS)
LONDON/BERLIN – British politicians are urging their European Union colleagues to place Hezbollah on Brussels' list of terrorist organizations, a step that appears far-reaching at this stage.
The EU will hold meetings this week, ahead of its foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, in an effort to marshal a consensus to include Hezbollah’s military wing on its terror list.
There is cautious optimism among EU and Israeli diplomats that Europe will sanction a part of Hezbollah.
A diplomat from a country in favor of a Hezbollah ban said a “consensus is clearly building” because “the evidence that it [Hezbollah] committed terrorism on EU soil is strong,” AFP reported on Tuesday.
The diplomat appeared to reference the evidence linking Hezbollah to a terrorist attack on an Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver last July.
The EU’s ambassadors are slated to meet in Brussels on Thursday to hammer out the required consensus among its 28 member states to outlaw Hezbollah’s military wing in Europe.
For some European politicians, however, a partial ban falls dramatically short of the necessary action to rope in the European activities of the Lebanese Shi’ite organization.
Michael McCann, a Labor MP in the UK, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, “Hezbollah should be proscribed, full stop."
“The simple truth of the matter is that Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy and issued to exert its sphere of influence over Lebanon and the wider region in whatever way possible. But don’t take my word for it, the deputy leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said in 2007 that all of Hezbollah’s policies including firing missiles into Israel would not have taken place without the consent of Iran,” he said.
“It’s a scandal that the UK has only proscribed part of Hezbollah, giving the impression that a distinction can be drawn between Hezbollah’s terrorists and those that purport to be politicians. And it’s even worse that the EU haven’t proscribed Hezbollah at all," McCann continued.
“Let’s hope these issues can be remedied, but if they are not it will be an extraordinary indictment of Western democracies; that while they will be tough on any terrorist who breaches their borders, they will apply a weaker standard to Hezbollah and the Middle East,” he said.
Charles Tannock, a British member of the European Parliament for the Conservative Party, told the Post on Tuesday,” I fully support efforts to blacklist Hezbollah’s military wing, but this will only partially solve the problem given that the military and civilian wings are so closely entwined. If you allow the civilian wing to continue raising money, there is no guarantee that this will be ring-fenced and not reach the military wing. The USA bans both the civilian and military wings."
He continued, “There are also reports that money is being raised now in EU territory and being sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon and possibly Syria, which makes this matter even more pressing given the Syrian conflict, where Hezbollah has over 1,000 fighters alongside Assad."
Tannock said four countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ireland and Austria – “have been holding out against EU designation because of concerns about the safety of their UN troop contributions in the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon."
Diplomats from Austria’s Foreign Ministry told the Post last week they were mulling an inclusion of Hezbollah’s military wing in the EU terror list.
Tannock said, “France, which had previously opposed designation through fears of destabilizing Lebanon [where Hezbollah is part of the government], is now fully behind this measure, following the revelations of Hezbollah’s involvement in the terrorist attack in Bulgaria against Israeli tourists, and attempts to carry out an action in Cyprus, which was thwarted."
A Cypriot court convicted Hezbollah member Hossam Taleb Yaacoub in March for plotting to kill Israelis and Jews on the island. Yaacoub, a dual Lebanese-Swedish citizen, used Europe for his meetings with Hezbollah. The court sentenced him to four years in prison.
Yaacoub told the Cypriot authorities that he was collecting “information about the Jews. And that is what my organization does everywhere in the world."
Malta is widely believed to be resisting a terror designation of Hezbollah. The British Foreign Office told the Post, “The evidence that Hezbollah’s military wing is a terrorist organization and committed terrorism on EU soil is compelling. That’s why we and a large number of member states believe that their formal listing as a terrorist organization is fully justified. We are working closely with EU countries on this issue and want to reach a robust, collective EU position."
Hezbollah’s attacks on European soil date back to the 1980s, spanning deadly bombings in a number of Western and Central European countries. Canada, the United States, Bahrain and Israel recognize Hezbollah’s entire structure as a terrorist entity.