The Republic of Kosovo designates Hezbollah a terrorist organization
The World Jewish Congress welcomed the proscription on Thursday, stating the move is a “principled step in the critical quest for international peace and security.”
By BENJAMIN WEINTHALSupporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah carry flags and pictures of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad during a rally marking al-Quds Day, (Jerusalem Day) in Maroun Al-Ras village, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon(photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
Kosovo’s government adopted the EU ban on Hezbollah’s so-called military arm, according to the Gazeta Express, a Kosovo news portal.“We praise Kosovo for leading in its support for this goal,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder on Thursday. “Its decision to do so comes at a crucial point in history, as we mark 25 years since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more. Indisputable evidence shows that Hezbollah, as a proxy of Iran, carried out this attack, and yet, 25 years later, justice has still not been served.”The US, Canada, the Arab League, Israel, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have already designated Hezbollah’s entire movement a terrorist entity. The EU and Germany have merely outlawed Hezbollah’s so-called military wing.Lauder urged “governments and international organizations across the world to follow in Kosovo’s path to ensure that we never surrender to these terrorists.”“The global community has been terrorized for more than three decades by Hezbollah and its operatives, who have executed their violent actions under the patronage of the Islamic Republic of Iran across nearly every continent,” he said. “Yet, several top international organizations, including the United Nations, still refuse to recognize Hezbollah in its entirety as the terrorist entity that it is.”Hezbollah’s “political wing” continues to operate in the EU and Germany. Hezbollah’s leadership considers its organization to be a unified movement without political and military wings.“It’s clear that there is absolutely no distinction between the military wing of Hezbollah and the political arm which guides it,” Lauder noted. “The international community must be united and uncompromising in its fight against radicalism, fundamentalism, and extremism. We must never grant leniency or impunity to those who wish to undermine our core values of freedom, democracy and liberty for all.”In May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected an urgent appeal from her country’s nearly 100,000-member Central Council of Jews to ban Hezbollah’s entire organization. According to a Jerusalem Post review of an intelligence report from the German state of Lower Saxony, 1,050 Hezbollah operates are in the federal republic. Hezbollah members and supporters raise funds, recruit new members and spread antisemitic and jihadist ideologies. Germany is currently experiencing a huge spike in antisemitism, according to statistics and media reports.Hezbollah blew up an Israeli tour bus in 2012 in Burgas, Bulgaria, murdering five Israelis and their Muslim Bulgarian bus driver.
