The parties Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, The Left, The Greens and Free Democrats opposed an anti-Hezbollah bill authored by the far-right party Alternative for Germany party.
Benjamin Weinthal
Germany’s Bundestag rejected a bill on Thursday to outlaw the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah in the federal republic.
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 far-right party Alternative for Germany party. The mainstream German parties’ rejection of the motion to ban Hezbollah comes a week after an urgent appeal from the Central Council of Jews in Germany to outlaw Hezbollah amid rising Jew-hatred in the federal republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requested last Friday that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist entity.
The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively on Wednesday that a May German intelligence report from the state of Lower Saxony asserts the number of Hezbollah members and supporters in Germany has climbed from 950 in 2017 to 1,050 in 2018.
The American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office tweeted on Thursday: “For a long time we have been calling for a ban on the antisemitic terrorist organization #Hezbollah. It is regrettable that this topic is now being taken up by the right-wing populists. We hope that all democratic parties will finally seek this prohibition. #Bundestag.”
The Left Party’s Kathrin Vogler spoke against the anti-Hezbollah bill during the debate. The Left Party is widely considered an anti-Israel party. The Left party’s MP Christine Buchholz has defended the ‘legitimate resistance” of Hezbollah against the Jewish state. Buchholz has also showed support for the EU and US designated terrorist entity Hamas.
Dr. Josef Schuster, the president of the nearly 100,000 member Central Council of Jews, urged the German government last week to ban Hezbollah.
The Green Party’s Omid Nouripour voiced his opposition to the anti-Hezbollah resolution. Nouripour played a role in a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions initiative against Israel in 2013. The Green Party initiative called for certain Israeli products to be labeled as part of a punishment because they originate in the disputed West Bank. A leading Green Party MP Jürgen Trittin has shown sympathy for Hezbollah, declaring: “We must speak with Hezbollah.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/German-parliament-rejects-ban-of-Hezbollah-snubbing-US-and-German-Jews-591800.
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