The European Jewish Congress (EJC) welcomed the decision of the European Union to add the military wing of Hezbollah to the list of terrorist organizations.
“We welcome this decision today and hope that this will greatly dampen Hezbollah’s efforts to raise funds to finance its terrorist activities, recruit, plot and commit atrocities on European soil and beyond,” EC President Moshe Kantor said. “This decision sends a message that Europe will no longer be a welcome territory for this murderous terrorist organization,’’ it said in a statement.
“While we maintain that Hezbollah is one organization with one hierarchy and one set of goals, we congratulate the EU for this important and historic decision,’’ he said.
The Zionisyt Federation (ZF) in Britain, th country that initiated the formal request for blacklisting, welcomed the news but said that proscribing Hezbollah’s military wing does not effectively counter terrorism.
''For the EU to thwart global terrorism they should proscribe all wings of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Furthermore, the EU cannot ignore the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who created Hezbollah and have made it the force it is today,'' it said.
ZF Chairman Paul Charney stated “Whilst I welcome the news that the EU is proscribing some of Hezbollah, I am left questioning what about the rest. Since it is and always has been a single organic terrorist organisation, then how does this help? Only the EU has made this irrelevant distinction and should proscribe Hezbollah immediately in its entirety”.