European contingent heads to Lebanon to meet with Hezbollah leader

Israeli political expert tells 'Post' that the former Belgium MP in the delegation is a known anti-Semite who has accused the Jews of financing the Holocaust.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
Updated: NOVEMBER 6, 2015 06:50
Delegation of European MPs, cultural figures meets with Hezbollah leader in Lebanon
A delegation of European politicians and cultural figures met with Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem during a recent visit to Lebanon, according to the terrorist group’s Al-Manar TV .
The episode that aired on Monday asserted that a group of present and former European MPs were part of the delegation that met with the Hezbollah leader in a “show of solidarity with the resistance in its fight against terrorism,” according to a report by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute).
One member was former Belgium MP Laurent Louis, who said “the Western leaders’ collaboration with terrorism has been exposed despite their false claims that they are protecting democracy and human rights.”
“Your fight against terrorism constitutes a comprehensive defense of humanity and of interfaith coexistence,” said Louis, according Al-Manar.
Emmanuel Navon, a lecturer in international relations at Tel Aviv University and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, told The Jerusalem Post that Laurent Louis is an anti-Semite and a failed politician.
“He joined the Belgian Islamist party, but even they came to consider him an embarrassment,” said Navon, who is also a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum.
Louis has accused the Belgian prime minister of being a pedophile and has accused the Jews of financing the Holocaust in order to promote Zionism, he added.
“Basically, he is an unstable loser looking for publicity with this visit. It is meaningless.”
MEMRI shared information with the Post on Thursday that the delegation also met with former Lebanese president Émile Lahoud.
Another member of the delegation, Tunisian writer and political scientist Riadh Sidaoui, who also has Swiss nationality, said they “came as a delegation from Europe to Lebanon and Syria in order to support the steadfastness of Syria and to support the resistance.”
“President Lahoud said that what is happening in Syria is a great conspiracy which has been waged for years due to [Syria’s] support of the resistance.
The first to benefit from this is the Israeli enemy,” recounted the Tunisian writer as reported by the Lebanese National News Agency. “We are surprised how the billions spent by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others are not paid to improve the living conditions in the Arab countries and building a united Arab society, but are spent on the destruction of the nationalism and pan-Arabism that was left by Gamal Abdel Nasser.”
MEMRI said that another Arab report indicated that the group was heading to Damascus.