Four German parties call for ban of Hezbollah activities
Hezbollah’s “political wing” operates in Germany by raising funds, recruiting new members and spreading antisemitic and jihadi ideologies.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALSupporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah carry the party's flag in Beirut(photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR)
In a new initiative, the Bundestag political factions of four parties on Friday urged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to ban Hezbollah’s activities.The German wire service DPA reported that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party, the Christian Social Union Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Free Democratic Party support the ban of Hezbollah activities in the federal republic, and that the initiative is slated to be discussed this week in the Bundestag. Merkel is a member of the CDU.The anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany already advocated a full ban of Hezbollah in June.In a parliamentary debate that month, an array of parties comprising the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, the Social Democratic Party, the Left, the Greens and Free Democrats opposed an anti-Hezbollah bill authored by the Alternative for Germany Party.The Free Democratic Party in November called for Hezbollah’s entire operation to be outlawed.Hezbollah’s “political wing” operates in Germany by raising funds, recruiting new members and spreading antisemitic and jihadist ideologies. The European Union, including Germany, classified Hezbollah’s so-called military wing a terrorist entity in 2013.In 2013, Hezbollah members blew up an Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver.According to German intelligence reports from 2019 reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, there are about 1,050 Hezbollah operatives working out of Germany.In late November, the German news outlet reported that the German government plans to ban Hezbollah. However, Steve Alter, an Interior Ministry spokesman, wrote on Twitter that the report on the “ban on activities” of Hezbollah “cannot be confirmed.”Hezbollah uses Germany to finance terrorism and purchase weapons, according to an article in the prestigious Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
Roughly 30 mosques and cultural centers in Germany have links to Hezbollah, according to a 2019 Hamburg Intelligence Agency report.“In Germany, there are currently about 30 known cultural and mosque associations in which a clientele regularly meets that is close to Hezbollah or its ideology,” wrote the intelligence agency.The Post exclusively reported in August, that a Hezbollah mosque in the German city of Münster posted a shocking video on its Facebook page announcing it was proud of terrorism and its allegiance to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.A Lebanese member of the Imam Mahdi Zentrum Shi’ite mosque in Münster declared: “We belong to the party of Ruhollah [Khomeini]. We have been accused of being terrorists – we are proud of terrorism.”In July, the Post reported an increase of Hezbollah members in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Münster is located.According to the intelligence document reviewed by the Post, the number of Hezbollah members climbed from 105 in 2017 to 110 in 2018 in North Rhine-Westphalia.The Iranian regime supplies Hezbollah with funds and weapons, and the Lebanese Shi’ite organization is Tehran’s chief strategic ally in the Middle East.Amid rising Jew-hatred and terrorism in the federal republic, the nearly 100,000 member Central Council of Jews urged Merkel to outlaw Hezbollah’s entire movement in Germany.The Post learned that the US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, has called for Hezbollah to be banned in every meeting that takes place with German officials.The US, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, the Arab League and the Netherlands have proscribed Hezbollah’s entire operation a terrorist entity.Niels Annen, a German under secretary of state in the foreign ministry – who is sympathetic toward Iran’s regime, Hezbollah and anti-Israel organizations – expressed opposition to a Hezbollah ban earlier in 2019. The German Green Party and the Left Party have helped mainstream Iran’s regime in Germany, according to critics.The US State Department has classified Iran’s regime as the worst state-sponsor of terrorism.
