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Germany designates Hezbollah as terror group

Germany’s parliament passed a nonbinding resolution on Thursday calling for a national ban on Hezbollah activities in Germany.

By World Israel News Staff

“It is unacceptable that Hezbollah is waging a terrorist fight against Israel in the Middle East, which is being financed through worldwide criminal activities, among other things,” said Mathias Middelberg, the spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in parliament.

“In view of Germany’s special responsibility toward Israel, we call on the government to ban all activities for Hezbollah in Germany,” he added

Middelberg spoke as Germany’s parliament passed a nonbinding resolution on Thursday resolution banning Hezbollah activities in Germany and calling on the European Union to not only designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist identity, but to also ban  Hezbollah’s political wing as well.

“The separation between a political and a military arm should be abandoned, and Hezbollah as a whole should be placed on the E.U. terrorist list. This could freeze Hezbollah’s funds and assets in Europe more extensively than before,” Middelberg said.

Currently, only the U.S., Canada, U.K., Netherlands, and the Arab League consider both Hezbollah’s military and political factions as one identity.

Israel’s Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff took to Twitter after the resolution passed.

“We welcome the significant resolution adopted today by the Bundestag, which relates to Hezbollah for what it is: a terrorist organization with no distinction between its military and ‘political’ wings,” Issacharoff wrote.

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“Hezbollah is indoctrinated, trained and financed by Iran and poses a threat not only to Israeli civilians but also undermines Lebanese sovereignty and regional stability. As the resolution indicates, it poses a direct threat to German security interests,” he added.

Earlier this month Guatemala’s president-elect Alejandro Giammattei promised Israel that his first order of business after he takes office will be to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group. He said that the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group will be all-encompassing, whereby members of the terrorist group will not be able to enter his country or act from within it.

Hezbollah receives hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran to fund it’s terror operations and is sworn to wipe Israel off the map.