Reza Aslan hardest hit — he who has termed Hizballah “the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon.”
Hizballah’s founder Hassan Nasrallah has said, “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
“European Union Adds Military Wing of Hezbollah to List of Terrorist Organizations,” by James Kanter and Jodi Rudoren for the New York Times, July 22:
BRUSSELS “” The military wing of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite group, was blacklisted by European Union ministers as a terrorist organization on Monday in a policy shift that reflected their concern about Hezbollah’s suspected involvement in Europe-based bombings and its growing role in the Syria war.
The blacklisting designation was welcomed by the United States and Israel, which have long regarded Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah and Iran, the group’s biggest ally, denounced the designation as a capitulation to United States and Israeli pressure. “It appears that the decision was written with an American hand in Zionist ink,” Hezbollah said in a statement from Beirut.
The immediate practical effects of the new designation were not clear, but symbolically at least they were an embarrassment to Hezbollah, the most important political organization in Lebanon. Many Lebanese expressed concern the designation would damage Lebanon’s international relations and worsen internal tensions, and Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman, asked the European Union to “re-examine its decision,” Lebanese media reported..
The sanctions that result from the European Union designation are expected to include asset freezes and possible travel bans on some individuals. But some sanctions experts said the policy shift set a precedent that over time could compromise Hezbollah’s fund-raising operations.
Europe has been an important financial conduit for Hezbollah, which has been implicated in attacks on Israelis abroad, maintains an arsenal of rockets trained at Israel and has come to the aid of Syria’s government in its effort to crush an uprising now in its third year.
The shift in policy toward Hezbollah, announced by European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels, comes as the United States is trying to broker new talks in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that could start in the next week or so.
“It is good that the E.U. has decided to call Hezbollah what it is: a terrorist organization,” Frans Timmermans, the foreign minister of the Netherlands, said in a statement. He said the move would have the effect of “limiting its capacity to act.”…