by Andrew Bernard
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters via a screen during a rally commemorating late Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine who was killed in an attack in Syria, in Beirut suburbs,
Lebanon May 20, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Taher
A bipartisan group of Senators and Congressmen on Tuesday introduced House and Senate resolutions calling on the European Union to designate the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The resolutions, led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), were introduced to coincide with the 11th anniversary of a Hezbollah attack on a tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria carrying mostly Israeli youths. In that attack a suicide bomber killed six people, including five Israelis, and injured 32 others.
While the EU designated Hezbollah’s “military wing” as a terrorist organization in 2013, it has not designated Hezbollah in its entirety.“It’s clear that there is no distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wings when it comes to its terror activities, and it’s past time that the European Union fully designate it as a terrorist organization,” Senator Rosen said in a statement. The text of the resolution cites decades of Hezbollah attacks on civilians, its extensive criminal enterprises in Europe and elsewhere, and its arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles directed at Israel.It also quotes Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem as saying that there is no distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political elements.
‘‘[Hezbollah does not] have a military wing and a political one,” Qassem said. “Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance.”
Tuesday’s resolutions were also endorsed by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).“The European Union’s labeling of Hezbollah’s ‘military wing’ as a terror group in 2013 was an important, but incomplete first step,” said Julie Fishman Rayman, AJC Senior Director, Policy and Political Affairs. “Hezbollah is a single, unified terrorist entity and recognizing that there are no distinct wings — as Hezbollah’s own leadership affirms — is crucial to address the terrorist infrastructure that Iran’s deadly proxy has established across Europe and beyond.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/07/19/house-senate-resolutions-introduced-calling-for-eu-to-designate-hezbollah-as-a-terror-organization/.
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