UK urged to ban ‘terrorist’ Hezbollah Distinction between political and military wings is false, british Mps told
LONDON: The British government is under renewed pressure to outlaw Hezbollah by removing the false distinction between its military and political wings.
The House of Commons discussed a proposal on Thursday by Labour opposition MP Joan Ryan for the Iran-backed Lebanese group to be designated a terrorist organization and for Britain to impose a complete ban in line with Canada, the US, the Netherlands and the Arab League. Currently, its military wing is proscribed but not its political organization.
Ryan, who chairs the Labour Friends of Israel lobby group, accused Hezbollah of “aiding and abetting the Assad regime’s butchery in Syria and helping to drive Iran’s expansionism throughout the region.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, driven by an anti-semitic ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel. It has wreaked death and destruction throughout the Middle East. It makes no distinction between its political and military wings, and neither should the British government.”
Conservative government MP Theresa Villiers said Hezbollah had been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around the world, and had been a “deeply malevolent presence in the Syrian civil war.”
David Ibsen, executive director of the Counter Extremism Project, called for “a new realism in the UK about the nature of Hezbollah.”
He said: “There are no ‘military’ and ‘political’ wings of Hezbollah, it is one pernicious terrorist organization founded and bankrolled by Iran. Hezbollah’s top officials brazenly acknowledge this fact.
“Thousands of Hezbollah fighters made the crucial difference in Syria for Bashar Assad and have trained Houthi rebels in Yemen on behalf of their Iranian benefactors.”
Hezbollah had committed “extensive crimes against Syrian civilians” and “took part in the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands” of people in Aleppo and elsewhere, a spokesperson for Syria Solidarity UK said.
“The failure of British MPs to come together to protect civilians in Syria has allowed Hezbollah to expand, has increased the threat of terrorism, and has worsened the refugee crisis.”
Michael McCann, director at the Israel Britain Alliance, said the UK’s policy on Hezbollah was “wrong-headed.”
“Hezbollah’s operations breach the 2000 UK Terrorism Act and the group must be banned, it’s that simple,” he said.