Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that the "biased" European Union should have put the IDF on its terror blacklist rather than the military wing of Hezbollah.
“If we want to speak logically, why wouldn’t the Europeans blacklist Israel’s military wing, i.e., its army?” Now Lebanon quoted him as saying.
The Lebanese Daily Star quoted Nasrallah as saying that the terror designation had been expected and was a decision taken under Israeli pressure.
Nasrallah stated that the move served only the interests of Israel and not Europe.
A Hezbollah official will meet with the EU representative in Lebanon, according to a press statement by Hezbollah on Wednesday, as reported by the Daily Star. Hezbollah official Ammar Moussawi plans to meet Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst on Thursday in Hezbollah’s stronghold of south Beirut.
Meanwhile, an official in Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry denounced the EU’s decision to put the armed wing of Hezbollah on its list of terror organizations, saying on Tuesday that the decision serves “Israeli plots in the region.”
According to the source quoted by Syria’s SANA news agency (Syrian Arab News Agency) on Wednesday, the European decision came in response to American and Israeli pressure.
"Hezbollah is a fundamental part of the Lebanese national fabric and enjoys a wide popularity in Lebanon," said the source.
He added that Hezbollah is playing “a positive role in bolstering the national unity in brotherly Lebanon.”
Syria’s ally Iran, also spoke out against the ban, condemning the EU’s decision and describing it as “biased” according to a report by the Iranian Mehr News website on Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday that the decision was “unacceptable.”
“Such measures will not change the popular and truth-seeking nature of Hezbollah, he said, adding, “The European Union’s move will serve the illegitimate interests of the Zionist regime.”
In a statement, Hezbollah said the EU decision “was written by American hands with Israeli ink.”
The terrorist organization also said that the decision had no justification since it was “not based on any proof,” according to the report.
An article by Ibrahim al-Amin in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar on Tuesday echoed these claims, arguing that Europe’s move can be attributed to its support of Zionism, which is based on their guilt from the Holocaust.
“The European “democracies” have been loyal supporters of Israeli occupation and apartheid since the racist nation’s birth from the womb of Britain's Balfour Declaration. Their blind support for Zionism is firmly rooted in their guilt over the barbaric way they treated Jews during World War II.”
Al-Amin goes on to claim that Hezbollah “exposed the cowardice and corruption of the system of Arab regimes who built their armies only to defend their thrones.”
And in defiance of the decision, an Hezbollah MP, Walid Sakaria, said on Tuesday that the decision by the EU would not stop the group’s involvement in Syria’s civil war in support of President Bashar Assad, according to a report by the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, JPOST.COM STAFF