The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called on the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization without drawing a distinction between the group’s terrorist arm and its political activities.
Encouraged by recent statements from the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom in support of the designation of the military wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, ADL said the designation « would be positive -- but largely ineffectual -- without taking meaningful steps to disrupt the group’s ability to use its political arm to raise financial support for terrorist activities. »
“A partial designation, as is now being discussed among the EU members, is unlikely to have a significant impact on Hezbollah’s fundraising activities in Europe and will create additional challenges for law enforcement efforts against terrorist financing,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
“With Hezbollah’s leadership now calling for full intervention in Syria and continuing to plot against and attack Jewish and Israeli targets in their ongoing quest to destroy Israel, it is high time for members of the European Union to take decisive action and finally meet their responsibility to designate Hezbollah’s entire structure as a terrorist organization,” he added.
In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, vice president of the European Commission, ADL noted that the delineation between Hezbollah’s terrorist and political activities was a distinction without a difference. “In fact, it is well known there is unity of command over both activities by Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah,” the letter stated.
In 2009, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem said: “Hezbollah has a single leadership,” and “All political, social and jihad work is tied to the decisions of this leadership. The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel.”
On Tuesday, several EU countries reportedly raised questions over the evidence linking Hezbollah to the bombing of a bus of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, last year, at a closed-doors meeting Tuesday in Brussels to discuss a British formal request for the EU to blacklist the military wing of Hezbollah.
According to several sources, at the meeting of the EU working group on terrorist designations several EU governments also expressed concern that such a move would increase instability in the Middle East now that Lebanon is already suffering spillover from the civil war in Syria.
Among these countries are Finland, Sweden, Austria and Ireland, the country holding the six-month EU presidency.