Bulgaria released a report proving without doubt that Hezbollah was behind the bus bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian. The EU will not be naming Hezbollah as a terrorist organzation, and here’s why:
On Tuesday, Bulgaria’s interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, announced that two of the people behind the July 18 bombing, which killed five Israeli tourists, a Bulgarian bus driver and the bomber, were believed to be members of the military wing of Hezbollah.
Decades ago, the West found a way to ignore Palestinian terrorism against Israel by organizations like Fatah, in order to keep alive the fiction that the Israelis could negotiate with Palestinians without having to negotiate with terrorists. They created the words “armed wing” and applied it to Fatah. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is one such organization. Yasser Arafat got to laugh at all the morons in the U.S. and Europe who gave cover to the idea that his terrorists weren’t working under his orders. They were the “military wing” of Fatah–which was part of the PLO (and now the PA). The West continuously ignored evidence linking Arafat directly to terror attacks, including an entire ship of arms and weapons captured by Israel.
The EU, led by France and Germany, refuse to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization in spite of all the evidence proving they murdered Israelis in a member nation of the EU. It doesn’t matter how many times Benjamin Netanyahu calls a terrorist a terrorist. They’re not buying it.
Referring to the findings, which blamed Hezbollah’s military wing for involvement, Netanyahu said “there is only one Hezbollah, it is one organization with one leadership.”
The EU also doesn’t care that it is helping Hezbollah to endanger non-Israelis (and for non-Israelis read: Americans).
John Brennan, US President Barack Obama’s assistant for counter-terrorism, urged the EU and its member countries to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. He noted that Ireland, where he was delivering his remarks, was among those countries that had not yet done so.
“Failure to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization makes it harder to defend our countries and protect our citizens,” Brennan declared, saying it complicates law enforcement efforts because of the problems invoking terror charges against Hezbollah suspects.
Hezbollah is building a large presence in South America with states that are very unfriendly to the U.S., such as Argentina–where Iran also is building a presence. They are partners in terror.
Asked about the interplay between Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Levitt told the Post that “Hezbollah and al-Quds are in bed together” and are mounting “a shadow war against Israel and the West.” The al-Quds force of the IRGC is an elite unit designed to spread Tehran’s Islamic philosophy and launch terror operations abroad.
The EU is ignoring Hezbollah’s terrorism. Not doing so allows the group to raise money in Europe and undermines security for the West.
It is a “very bad thing that Hezbollah can operate in Europe regarding fund-raising and logistics,” US Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, a former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department in the first Obama administration, said. Hezbollah’s legal status in the EU “undermines security goals,” he said.
But it doesn’t matter, because the EU countries that refuse to name Hezbollah a terror organization are doing so out of their own self-interest, which apparently trumps the prevention of terrorism.
What are those interests, outside of influence inside Lebanon? For some the interests are economic, a concern that such a move could anger parts of the Arab world that invest in their economies. For others it is a fear of “provoking” Hezbollah, and a concern that blacklisting the organization would trigger a terrorist retaliation on their own territory, or against their own nationals.
Ten global terrorist plots against Israelis? Doesn’t matter. U.S. State Department urges the EU to designate Hezbollah terrorists? Nope.
Let’s be honest here. It’s not just self-interest that is stopping the EU from designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The precedent was set when the world chose to ignore all evidence that Yasser Arafat spoke peace to the West and orchestrated war when the cameras were off. And the West bought it, hook, line, and sinker.
But there’s one more reason: The world believes that terrorism isn’t terrorism when it is carried out against Jews.
Try telling a liberal that GWB wasn’t responsible for the invasion of Iraq because it was carried out by the military wing of the government. Their reactions that anyone could suggest something so stupid that are priceless :-)