UK Edition
Some organisations pretend they aren’t violent. Sinn Fein for years denied they were the political wing of the IRA. As the bombs and bullets murdered people across the UK, they and their useful idiots claimed they were simply a political party dedicated to uniting the island of Ireland. Everyone knew it was rubbish, but they kept up the fiction for decades. Some keep it up today.
Hizbollah never bothered with that lie. They don’t make a distinction between the armed resistance, as they call it, and the political party. They make no distinction between the military command and the civilian leadership. Why should they? Armed resistance is, after all, the purpose of the movement.
Founded to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 1982, the group now continues the conflict by firing rockets into towns across the border. Homes in northern Israel require bomb shelters and reinforcements to protect civilians from attack. This isn’t additional to the business of Hizbollah. It’s the core.
Though many focus on the work they do in the Shi’a suburbs of Beirut, the purpose of the group is millenarian – as the leader Hassan Nasrallah has said, Jewish migration to Israel can bring about the “final and decisive battle”.
In Lebanon, most are more interested in rebuilding the economy after decades of conflict and are now trying to ensure they can keep safe from the Syrian war raging all around them. But for Hizbollah, a party set up by the Iranian government, these wars are their purpose.
They’re not just a Lebanese party, they’re part of the wider revolution that seeks not just the destruction of Israel but the conversion – by force if necessary – of the whole world to their branch of Shi’a Islam. That’s why Hizbollah are fighting alongside Assad’s forces and supporting a regime that uses chemical weapons and barrel bombs to murder civilians. That’s why the UK’s position on Hizbollah is a mistake.
Extraordinarily, we do what Hizbollah don’t. We claim there is a difference between the two sides of the party while their leaders have consistently made clear they are one. Nasrallah even jokingly described Hizbollah ministers as part of the military wing of jihad. So why are we engaging in such tortured thinking?
We want to support the Lebanese people whose courage against so many regional pressures has been hugely impressive. Rightly, we want to support the Lebanese Armed Forces who have defended those fleeing the brutality of Syria by providing sanctuary from the Iranian-backed Assad regime and the Islamic extremists. And we want to continue to help a country that has taken in a higher proportion of refugees than any other in the region. So, we turn a blind eye to the truth.
But that doesn’t really help anyone.
Instead, we should follow the example of the Dutch, Americans, and others in simply banning the organisation but working with the Lebanese government. That would stop Hizbollah propaganda and anti-Semitism on our streets, of the sort we have seen in previous Al Quds marches in London, the latest of which takes place today. It would also support those in Lebanon who really are working for a peaceful future.
Tom Tugendhat MP is chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee
Violence is the purpose of Iranian-backed Hizbollah. Britain ignoring that helps nobody