Avigdor Lieberman Blasts EU for Failure to Blacklist Hezbollah
by Zach Pontz
Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Avigdor Lieberman, lashed out at the European Union in a letter Monday, calling its decision to exclude Hezbollah from a terror blacklist as “the ultimate hypocrisy.”
Lieberman writes in the letter: “Such a decision would not only send a strong message of zero tolerance towards the activities of the organization, but also prevent it from being able to raise funds and gain support across Europe.”
He noted that the threat Hezbollah poses to European countries increases every year, using as an example the recent Bulgaria bus bombing, the organization’s drug trafficking in Germany, and the recent conviction of a terror operative in Cyprus.
Lieberman was quoted as saying that Israel must convey to the EU that failure to blacklist Hezbollah in an upcoming discussion on the topic in two weeks “will make the EU irrelevant to us.”
During a meeting last week in Brussels, several EU countries expressed their concern that a move to blacklist Hezbollah could lead to greater instability in the Middle East.