From the Hesitating On the Moral Precipice Department. From Lebanonwire, with thanks to RB:
European legislators on Thursday branded the radical Lebanese Hizbollah group a “terrorist” organization and urged EU governments to place the group on their terrorist blacklists, as the bloc did with the Palestinian Hamas group in 2003.
“[EU] Parliament considers that clear evidence exists of terrorist activities by Hizbollah. The [EU] Council should take all necessary steps to curtail them," legislators said in a non-binding resolution adopted during a session in Strasburg, France on Thursday. EU lawmakers also called on Syria to withdraw its troops and intelligence services from Lebanon.
EU countries are under pressure from the US administration and Israel to add the Iranian-backed Hizbollah organization to its list of outlawed terrorist organizations, obliging member states to seize its assets and take action against its members.
So far, France, Spain, and Britain have been reluctant to include Hizbollah on the list, fearing that such a move would further damage the prospects for Middle East peace talks....
Meanwhile, more mixed signals on another front:
In related news, Washington has refuted a story in the New York Times earlier this week, according to which the US was softening its stance towards Hizbollah and might be ready to recognize it as a legitimate political party in Lebanon. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that the US stance towards Hizbollah had not changed and that the administration of US President George Bush would accept a political role for Hizbollah only if it disarmed. Rice said that did not reflect a shift in Washington’s stance, but it did reflect recognition of the political clout of the militant Shi’ite Muslim organization in Lebanon.
In remarks to reporters, Rice carefully avoided the stock US phrase that Hizbollah is a terrorist organization. Her statements come two days after Hizbollah showed its political power by drawing hundreds of thousands of people to central Beirut for a pro-Syrian rally to counter the effect of two weeks of anti-Syrian rallies following the 14 February assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri....
Two days ago, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the international community to understand that Hizbollah was a force to be reckoned with in implementing the UN Security Council resolution calling for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and the disarming of all militia groups. “[W]e need to recognize that they are a force in society that one will have to factor in as we implement the resolution,” Annan said.
Yeah, Hitler was a force in society too. I know Annan is long gone, and now it looks as if Rice is on the verge of losing her mind as well. Don't they see at State how this kind of thing worked out with Arafat? Do we really want to usher in another endless cycle of conflict in Lebanon? If the Bush Administration really understood the jihad ideology, they would never consider negotiating with Hizballah, even if it disarms -- after all, this would still be an organization committed to agreeing to a truce only to gather strength to fight more effectively in the future (as per traditional Islamic law). But nary a soul in Washington, on either side of the aisle, seems to have a clue.
The Party of God is a valid political organization despite the fact that it is run by the kafir Shia.
No imam is equal to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
All those who believe that the Khomeinists and the Wahhabis hate each other too much to collaborate should take note of "Wahhabite's" telling comment. After all, didn't vicious Gulbuddin Hekmatyar find refuge in Iran for a number of years?
Liberals cannot win this war because they will always underestimate the power of the hatred that unites Sunni to Shiite and Islamist to leftist.
Hey everyone;
Could this "Wahabite" specimen be for real?
I always thought that Wahhabis hates being called "Wahhabis" like the Muslims hate being called "Mohammedans."
Rublev
Like his brothers OBL and Zarqawi, Wahabite-me cannot resist flaunting his amorousness for violence in the name of Allah and his contempt for non-Muslims. He is doing DW and JW a great service with his outspoken presence here.
Guys, I think that it's a froll (=faux troll). It's just trying to get you to post things that can be used against the site as "hate speech".
Excellent point CGW!
That's also an important new term for our vocabulary.
The problem with Hizbollah is the same as the British and the Irish had with Sinn Fein: that once a terrorist-based organization achieves a solid electoral mandate by a significant share of the electorate - in the case of Sinn Fein, up to ten per cent in NOrthern Ireland and a smaller percentage in the Republic - it is no longer a police problem, but a political one. The British approach has been to try and wean the extremist Republican area - both leaders and electorate - off the armalite and into the ballot box and the negotiation table. Recent events prove that it has been successful: when an ordinary member of the Republican community was murdered by some Sinn Fein thugs in a pub, his family set up a vigorous campaign against the murderers and refused the IRA's offer to have them murdered, demanding instead that they should surrender to British police and stand their trial in a British court. For the IRA and the Republican community, this is unheard-of: for decades, the IRA regarded itself as the only legitimate authority in the Republican world, allowed to dispense justice in its own way, and people who went to the British authorities were automatically regarded as traitors. Up to a few years ago, the Union Jack was commonly called "the butchers' apron" among Republicans. Now ordinary Republicans demand that the guilty among them should surrender to British justice. No wonder the IRA are bewildered. A similar approach, over a longer period of time, has worked with the erstwhile Italian Communist Party, now trasmogrified into the practically Blairite Party of the Democratic Left. Participation in democracy tends to soften hearts and make violence less and less attractive.
However, one has to wonder how much a similar approach would work with Hezbollah. Sinn Fein and the Communist came from a common Christian and Socialist background as most of their opponents, spoke the same language, recognized, in daily life if not in politics, a very similar system of values. With Hezbollah, on the other hand, you are speaking about a system that knows little of democracy and common values, and whose reaction to any challenge is to circle wagons and start shooting. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, like the old Communists, is truly representative of certain sections of society. They are toxic waste: they can neither be ignored nor safely be disposed of. That is why the West, in dealing with them and their likes, always wavers between the unpleasant option of the stick and the clearly undesirable one of the carrot.
OT, but an excellent letter exposing the myths of Islamic "civilization".
http://www.ninevehsoft.com/fiorina.htm
"The Party of God is a valid political organization despite the fact that it is run by the kafir Shia.
No imam is equal to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)."
and what, bismillah ar rahman ar rahim, is the kafir shia? Do you mean Shiat Ali?
Do you think that believing in Al Hossein and Al Abbas is shirk? Polytheism?
The British approach has been to try and wean the extremist Republican area - both leaders and electorate - off the armalite and into the ballot box and the negotiation table. Recent events prove that it has been successful
Recent events suggest quite the opposite; that even when antagonists come from a "common Christian and Socialist background", those who have been successful in gaining recognition, concessions and power through the barrel of a gun will not so easily surrender that gun. To wit: the refusal of the IRA to verifiably decommission their weapons because it would be "humiliating".
It will be nigh impossible to bring Hezbollah into a political process as they have already drawn the wrong lesson from Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and are subject to the same genocidal, magical thinking as the mullahs in Iran. They can also see that the Palestinians are being rewarded -- with the promise of a state -- by the US, Europe and Israel for five years of murder and mayhem. Not exactly an incentive to disarm.
All who think that the Wahabbis, radical Shi'ah, and secular dictators can't cooperate ought to not only consider the Wahabite's comment above, but also the pro-Assad stance Hizbollah has taken.
As for the Europeans and Bush administration's stance, please note that Ithna'ashariyya Shi'ah Muslims are the largest single group in Lebanon's sectarian patchwork; so anyone who deals with Lebanon must deal with the Shi'ites' political organizations, whether good or bad.