Bipartisan Bill Urges EU to Designate Hezbollah Fully as Terrorist Organization
by JNS.org
JNS.org – A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Thursday that calls on the European Union to fully designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The legislation, introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), seeks to encourage the 27-nation block to designate both Hezbollah’s military and political wings as terrorist entities. Currently, the EU only includes Hezbollah’s military wing on its list of sanctioned terrorist organizations.
The United States makes no distinction between its branches and includes Hezbollah in its entirety on the US Foreign Terrorist Organization List. Several individual EU member states also recognize this, including Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
“Hezbollah is a brutal terrorist organization notorious for operating throughout the Middle East,” said Blackburn. “However, it derives both financial support and political legitimacy from every region of the world. The European Union cannot enable terrorists by allowing them to participate in diplomacy.”