Free Democratic Party urges Merkel to place full ban on Hezbollah
The Free Democratic Party urged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration to outlaw the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah in Germany while the EU’s commissioner to combat antisemitism on Saturday went mum on whether the European states should ban the Shi’ite movement.
The FDP member of parliament, Marcus Faber, wrote on Twitter in late October, “Germany should treat, in the future, Hezbollah as a terrorist organization,” and strongly work to make the EU proscribe Hezbollah a terrorist entity. The FDP executive board in the Bundestag passed an anti-Hezbollah decision. Despite rising antisemitism in Germany, Merkel and her social democratic coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, are flatly against banning Hezbollah.
The Jerusalem Post on Saturday asked Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission coordinator on combating antisemitism, if the EU and Germany should proscribe Hezbollah a terrorist entity.
“As you may be aware, my responsibilities concern EU-internal policies in the fight against antisemitism,” she said. “The questions you raise are not an issue of my personal opinion, but of EU policy agreed between all EU member states. I will thus transmit your request to the EU services responsible for external affairs for their response.”
When asked how Hezbollah did not affect EU-internal policies, von Schnurbein did not immediately respond.
The Post also sent a press query to Dr. Felix Klein, the German government’s commissioner responsible for combating antisemitism. Klein’s counterpart in the German state of Hesse, Uwe Becker, has called on Merkel to classify Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
According to German intelligence reports, there are 1,050 active Hezbollah operatives in the federal republic. The Hezbollah supporters and members spread antisemitic and jihadi ideologies, as well as fund-raise for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto calls for Israel’s “obliteration
from existence.” Hezbollah also recruits new members in Germany.
Germany and the EU have merely outlawed Hezbollah’s military wing. Brussels and Berlin still work with Hezbollah’s political wing. The Netherlands, the US, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada and the Arab League have designated Hezbollah’s entire organization as a terrorist entity.
The anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany also supports a complete ban of Hezbollah in Germany. The Green Party, the Left Party, the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union currently reject a ban of Hezbollah.
Germany’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, has also refused to push for a ban of Hezbollah. The deputy foreign minister, Niels Annen, said shortly after the UK banned Hezbollah in March that Germany won’t designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist entity because Hezbollah is a part of Lebanon’s political and social system. Lebanese citizens are currently protesting against Hezbollah due to government corruption and economic stagnation.
One of Germany’s most popular papers, Bild, accused Annen last month of making antisemitism “socially respectable,” because he celebrated Iran’s regime at Tehran’s embassy in February. Iran is a chief strategic partner with Hezbollah and a major funder of the Shi’ite organization’s terrorism.
The Post exclusively reported in August that a Lebanese member of a Hezbollah-controlled mosque and center in the German city of Münster declared: “We have pledged allegiance to [Ali] Khamenei; we are accused of terrorism and are proud of it.”
According to German intelligence reports, there are 30 German mosques and cultural centers tied to Hezbollah.
The Post has learned that US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell urges German officials in every meeting to outlaw Hezbollah. The Israeli government has also requested that Merkel ban the Lebanese terrorist entity.