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EU Refuses to Outlaw the Entire Hezbollah Terrorist Entity

Amid complaints by European Jewish leaders that the European Union does not have a serious plan to fight rising antisemitism on the continent, a spokesman for the EU told The Jerusalem Post that the EU will not ban the entire terrorist movement Hezbollah and declines to say if the Islamic Republic is an antisemitic regime.

When the Post asked about a full ban of Hezbollah, Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission Coordinator on combating Antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, punted the question to her EU superiors.

Peter Stano, EU Spokesperson for Foreign Policy, told the Post that “The military wing of Hezbollah is already on the EU terror list. Any changes in the nature and scope of the existing listing are for EU Member States to discuss and decide by unanimity.”

After Hezbollah operatives blew up an Israeli terror bus in 2012 in Burgas, Bulgaria, murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver, the EU merely proscribed Hezbollah’s military wing.

Hezbollah considers its organization to be a unified movement that cannot be divided into military and political parts. The partial ban sparked Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi, in 2013, to reiterate what other top officials of the organization have stated over the years: “Hezbollah is a single, large organization. We have no wings that are separate from one another.”

When asked if the Islamic Republic of Iran—the chief sponsor and strategic ally of Hezbollah—is an antisemitic regime, Stano said that the “EU has been very clear in its condemnation of antisemitism in general and of the calls for the destruction of Israel by anyone who comes up with such unacceptable calls.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, testified before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism in 2020 and said at the hearing that Iran’s regime is the top state-sponsor of Holocaust denial and antisemitism.

Greenblatt wrote in Newsweek in late June that " Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, played a hands-on role in promoting The Protocols as part of a sustained campaign to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish people." The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was "a 19th-century forgery by Russian intelligence services...designed to scapegoat Jews for the empire's hardships."

Several reasons why the EU commission won’t declare the Islamic Republic an antisemitic regime might be explained by attempts not to upset the clerical leaders in Tehran in order to reach an agreement on the nation’s nuclear program.

European Union member nations are also animated by Iranian markets and trade deals, including Iran’s vast oil and gas production process.

Hezbollah is widely considered a deeply antisemitic terrorist organization because of its terrorism targeting Jews and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. Germany, Britain, the US, the Netherlands, the Arab League, Japan, Canada and many additional European and Latin American countries have proscribed Hezbollah's entire organization as a terrorist entity.

It is an unusual situation when the commissioner to combat antisemitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, declines to deliver her view on whether the EU should outlaw the world’s most deadly antisemitic organization. (JPost / VFI News)

“God, we ask that You eliminate antisemitism from Your world, and preserve Your children and their faith in the Land."