World Jewish News

Hezbollah to be blacklisted by the EU at next Foreign Ministers meeting ?

European Union Foreign Ministers are set to discuss a formal request by Britain to put Hezbollah's military wing on the EU list of terror groups as opposition to the move appears to be weakening.
A special group in the EU already dicussed the issue twice but British diplomats each time failed to win the requested unanimity of the EU member states with some skeptical governments fearing the step would fuel instability in the Middle East. "It's now the right time for the listing of Hezbollah's military wing to be discussed at a political level in the EU,’’ a diplomat said.
Britain, which has asked the issue to be put on the agenda of the next EU Foreign Ministers meeting on July 22 in Brussels, is backed by France and Germany and also by Holland, a country which already designates Hezbollah as a whole as a terror organization since 2004.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is chairing the foreign affairs ministerial meetings, said the agenda for the meeting has not yet been finalized.
In its request, Britain has argued that Hezbollah should face European sanctions because of evidence that it was behind the bus bombing at Sarafovo airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, in July 2012, that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver. London has also cited a four-year jail sentence handed down by a Cypriot court last March to a Hezbollah operative accused of plotting to attack Israeli interests on the island.
Austria, the Czech Republic and Italy have been among EU governments that have voiced reservations. They say they are still examining the evidence linking Hezbollah to the Burgas attack while others fear that blacklisting the group could further destabilize Lebanon where Hezbollah is involved in the government.
But the British proposal appears to have gained growing support in recent weeks because of Iranian-backed Hezbollah's deeper involvement in the Syrian civil war.
A diplomat from one EU country that had doubts about blacklisting Hezbollah's military wing said Britain had provided more information in support of its request.
"I haven't heard lately that any state - probably a question mark is Prague - is so dead against this that they will prevent a consensus. At the end of the day nobody wants to be the defender of the military wing of Hezbollah," the diplomat said.
The Czech Republic was said to be opposed to blacklisting Hezbollah's military wing because of the difficulty of distinguishing between its political and military wings.
The new Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said the recent collection of “additional evidence” leads to the conclusion that Hezbollah is responsible for the Burgas bus bombing.
“There is no change in the Bulgarian stance on the act of terror in Sarafovo. My expert opinion, as I am acquainted with the conclusions and the facts, gathered up to now in the investigation, is that the announced stance of my colleagues is right and I port it,” he said.
In June, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin appeared to backtrack from Bulgaria’s initial investigation into the bombing saying there was only an “indication” that Hezbollah was behind the terror attack. But he later sought to clarify his remarks, telling a Bulgarian newspaper that the Bulgarian government had “not reconsidered its stand on Hezbollah.”
According to Dr Eitan Azani, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, the main question is not that Hezbollah is a ‘’hybrid organization’’ but that it is a terrorist organization ‘’not from the Israel point of view, but from an international point of view.’’
Speaking at a conference earlier this week in Brussels, Azani said most definitions of terror around the world highlight three different components: act of violence and violence against civilians to achieve political goals.
‘’These are the three components of most of the terrorist groups around the world.’’
‘’From the beginning of its creation, Hezbollah used violence to achieve its goals. Not only violence against Israeli citizens, but violence to achieve the goals of the organisation in different parts of the world. Hezbollah established from the early days an international infrastructure that it used during the years to operate and to carry out Hezbollah operations around the world – some of them logistical operations, some of them criminal operations like drug trafficking, some of them military and terrorist operations,’’ Azani said. European Union Foreign Ministers are set to discuss a formal request by Britain to put Hezbollah's military wing on the EU list of terror groups as opposition to the move appears to be weakening.
A special group in the EU already dicussed the issue twice but British diplomats each time failed to win the requested unanimity of the EU member states with some skeptical governments fearing the step would fuel instability in the Middle East. "It's now the right time for the listing of Hezbollah's military wing to be discussed at a political level in the EU,’’ a diplomat said.
Britain, which has asked the issue to be put on the agenda of the next EU Foreign Ministers meeting on July 22 in Brussels, is backed by France and Germany and also by Holland, a country which already designates Hezbollah as a whole as a terror organization since 2004.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is chairing the foreign affairs ministerial meetings, said the agenda for the meeting has not yet been finalized.
In its request, Britain has argued that Hezbollah should face European sanctions because of evidence that it was behind the bus bombing at Sarafovo airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, in July 2012, that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver. London has also cited a four-year jail sentence handed down by a Cypriot court last March to a Hezbollah operative accused of plotting to attack Israeli interests on the island.
Austria, the Czech Republic and Italy have been among EU governments that have voiced reservations. They say they are still examining the evidence linking Hezbollah to the Burgas attack while others fear that blacklisting the group could further destabilize Lebanon where Hezbollah is involved in the government.
But the British proposal appears to have gained growing support in recent weeks because of Iranian-backed Hezbollah's deeper involvement in the Syrian civil war.
A diplomat from one EU country that had doubts about blacklisting Hezbollah's military wing said Britain had provided more information in support of its request.
"I haven't heard lately that any state - probably a question mark is Prague - is so dead against this that they will prevent a consensus. At the end of the day nobody wants to be the defender of the military wing of Hezbollah," the diplomat said.
The Czech Republic was said to be opposed to blacklisting Hezbollah's military wing because of the difficulty of distinguishing between its political and military wings.
The new Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said the recent collection of “additional evidence” leads to the conclusion that Hezbollah is responsible for the Burgas bus bombing.
“There is no change in the Bulgarian stance on the act of terror in Sarafovo. My expert opinion, as I am acquainted with the conclusions and the facts, gathered up to now in the investigation, is that the announced stance of my colleagues is right and I port it,” he said.
In June, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin appeared to backtrack from Bulgaria’s initial investigation into the bombing saying there was only an “indication” that Hezbollah was behind the terror attack. But he later sought to clarify his remarks, telling a Bulgarian newspaper that the Bulgarian government had “not reconsidered its stand on Hezbollah.”
According to Dr Eitan Azani, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, the main question is not that Hezbollah is a ‘’hybrid organization’’ but that it is a terrorist organization ‘’not from the Israel point of view, but from an international point of view.’’
Speaking at a conference earlier this week in Brussels, Azani said most definitions of terror around the world highlight three different components: act of violence and violence against civilians to achieve political goals.
‘’These are the three components of most of the terrorist groups around the world.’’
‘’From the beginning of its creation, Hezbollah used violence to achieve its goals. Not only violence against Israeli citizens, but violence to achieve the goals of the organisation in different parts of the world. Hezbollah established from the early days an international infrastructure that it used during the years to operate and to carry out Hezbollah operations around the world – some of them logistical operations, some of them criminal operations like drug trafficking, some of them military and terrorist operations,’’ Azani said.

EJP