Banning Hezbollah: A welcome and overdue step

Hezbollah’s record as the perpetrator of major terrorist atrocities around the world has been known for decades.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
HEZBOLLAH FLAGS flutter along an empty street, at the entrance of Mays Al-Jabal village (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
HEZBOLLAH FLAGS flutter along an empty street, at the entrance of Mays Al-Jabal village
(photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
In a welcome step, Germany last week banned all activities of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. Announcing the move, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer declared that Hezbollah’s activities “violate criminal law, and the organization opposes the concept of international understanding.”
The ban was long overdue. Hezbollah’s record as the perpetrator of major terrorist atrocities around the world has been known for decades: Its history includes the bombings, orchestrated by Imad Mughniyeh, of the US Embassy and the military barracks in Beirut in 1983; the bombing attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish center there in 1994; the bombing attack against US military forces stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1996; the murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri; the bombing of a tour bus carrying Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, in 2012; not to mention the myriad attacks against and kidnappings of Israelis, Europeans and Americans; its role in provoking the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and its part in the Syrian civil war, where it helped Iran create a corridor of terror from Tehran to Beirut.
Hezbollah’s ongoing efforts to obtain precision-guided missiles and the discovery of a warren of terrorist attack tunnels crossing from Lebanon into Israel are yet more indications that it has not given up its dreams of death and destruction.
The US and Israel for years urged Europe to ban Hezbollah, but it was only after Hezbollah carried out the attack in Burgas that the European Union was moved to act. In July 2013, EU governments agreed to partially blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but they made an artificial and dangerous distinction between the “military” arm of Hezbollah and the “political” arm. This is a distinction that the terrorist organization itself does not make. It is ridiculous and counterproductive to pretend there is a difference between the “political” and “military” activities of an organization whose terrorists have caused such high death tolls and suffering globally.
As The Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal noted on Sunday, in an analysis of the long-overdue nature of the German decision, this newspaper has reported on hundreds of Hezbollah’s activities in Europe, including a Hezbollah member declaring last year in a Hezbollah-controlled mosque in the German city of Münster: “We belong to the party of Ruhollah [Khomeini].... We are proud of terrorism.”
The US, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, the Arab League and now Germany have all taken the step to ban Hezbollah.
As Weinthal noted, a major change in attitude in Germany occurred with the appointment of Richard Grenell as US ambassador in 2018. Last week, Grenell welcomed the German measure, saying: “The world is a little bit safer with this German government ban of Hezbollah. The entire US Embassy in Berlin has worked with the German government and the Bundestag for two years to push for this ban. It’s an incredible diplomatic success that we hope will motivate many officials in Brussels to follow suit with an EU-wide ban.”
The Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob, in an analysis published on Monday, noted the role of the Mossad in supplying European countries with intelligence that has helped prevent attacks by Hezbollah and its Shi’ite allies (as well as Sunni ISIS). This includes intel on warehouses in southern Germany belonging to Hezbollah operatives, where hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate – used to make explosives – were stored. Mossad chief Yossi Cohen has revealed that an Iranian diplomat in Vienna headed a bomb plot in France, and was nabbed presumably with the help of Israeli intelligence.
It is absurd to tolerate terrorism for fear of upsetting Hezbollah’s patron – the Islamic Republic of Iran. And it should be remembered that – like ISIS and other Sunni jihadists – many of the victims of the Shi’ite terrorist organization have been Muslims.
Hezbollah cannot be considered a legitimate political movement. Its record shows that it is a terrorist organization that shamelessly targets innocent civilians. Hundreds have died as a result. It needs to be clearly acknowledged that Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are not a “Middle Eastern” issue, but a threat that knows no borders, aimed against the international community. As long as the political wing is considered legal, Hezbollah will be able to continue fundraising and recruiting freely in Europe and elsewhere. This financial pipeline and recruitment system is the oxygen that keeps Hezbollah alive.
When tackling terrorism, you can’t do things by half. It is time for all countries that believe in peace and security to ban both Hezbollah’s political and military wings. There can be no shades of gray in blacklisting Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.