Proscription of Hezbollah

Debate between David Jones and Nick Boles

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

May I say, too, how very pleased I am, Mr Deputy Speaker, to see you in the Chair today? I congratulate the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on her opening speech and on securing this important debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. I should declare an interest as chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. Indeed, it is one of the largest, most powerful, most vicious and most dangerous terrorist organisations in the world. Although it is, ostensibly, a political party, and one of the key political players in Lebanon, it also overtly and rigidly adheres to the Shi’ite revolutionary agenda of Iran. Its emergence in 1982 in the wake of the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon was directly attributable to the intervention of Iran. The influence of Iran was made clear in Hezbollah’s manifesto, dated 1985, which stated:

“We are the sons of the umma—the party of God, the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran.”

Hezbollah, in truth, is an Iranian proxy, closely associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, like Iran, it considers the United States and Israel its principal enemies. Early in its existence, Hezbollah pledged allegiance to Ayatollah Khomeini, and since Khomeini’s death in 1989 it has continued allegiance to his successor, Ali Khamenei.

Central to the ideology of Hezbollah is the concept of resistance, chiefly to the United States and Israel, and resistance is Hezbollah code for terrorist activity. Indeed, the history of Hezbollah has been one of one terrorist act after another. In April 1983, very shortly after its formation, it carried out a suicide attack on the United States embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. Six months later, there was another suicide bombing—of the US Marines barracks in Beirut—which killed 241. US nationals have been repeatedly targeted by Hezbollah, and, indeed, Hezbollah was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organisation until the 9/11 attacks on New York city.

Israel and Israeli interests have also been the repeated targets of Hezbollah terrorism. After Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah carried out numerous cross-border incursions, culminating in an attack in July 2006 that killed eight Israeli soldiers. In the conflict that followed, Hezbollah fired thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets into Israeli territory, killing 39 civilians and 120 soldiers.

Hezbollah has also planned and executed many other terrorist attacks outside the region, including on the European continent. Two Hezbollah operatives are being tried in their absence for the 2012 bombing of a bus carrying Israeli citizens at Burgas airport in Bulgaria. Such actions are seen as part of the “resistance” to Israel that is one of Hezbollah’s avowed objectives. Many of the attacks have been on non-Israeli Jewish people and Jewish interests—the right hon. Member for Enfield North catalogued those attacks extensively.

Quite understandably and properly, Hezbollah’s activities have led to it being designated a terrorist organisation in many parts of the world. In 1996, Israel listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, followed by the United States in 1997. It has also been proscribed by Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, France and Bahrain. In March 2016, the Gulf Co-operation Council designated it a terrorist organisation, stressing its status as a proxy for Iran in regional conflicts, including with the Houthi rebellion in Yemen. The secretary general of the GCC, Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani, commented:

“The GCC states consider Hezbollah militias’ practices in the Council’s states and their terrorist and subversive acts being carried out in Syria, Yemen and Iraq contradict moral and humanitarian values and principles and international law and pose a threat to Arab national security.”

Very recently, in November last year, most of the Arab League’s 22 members condemned Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, stating that it was supporting terrorist groups across the middle east by supplying them with weapons, including ballistic missiles.

The United Kingdom’s position on Hezbollah has been somewhat more nuanced. In 2001, the UK proscribed Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000. That proscription was extended to the military wing, including the Jihad Council, in 2008 as a consequence of Hezbollah’s targeting of British soldiers in Iraq. The UK was also instrumental in persuading the European Union to designate the military wing a terrorist entity in 2013.

However, the British Government have consistently been reluctant to extend the proscription to the entirety of Hezbollah. In an explanatory memorandum to the European Scrutiny Committee in August 2013, the then Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), stated that although the UK does not engage with Hezbollah’s political wing, some EU member states do engage with it as a political party in Lebanon and therefore had concerns over the effect of EU designation on that engagement. He explained that by distinguishing between Hezbollah’s political and military wings, the designation would not prevent those member states that have contacts with Hezbollah’s political representatives from maintaining such contact.

The Minister stated in the same memorandum that the military wing of Hezbollah was separate from the political wing, which included Ministers, Members of Parliament and other representatives, and was overseen by a political council. I suggest that such a distinction is completely illusory. The fact is that Hezbollah itself denies that there is any distinction to be drawn between its military and political wings.

[Nick Boles]

My right hon. Friend is making a persuasive speech. Does he agree that it would be as absurd to suggest that one could distinguish between the British Government and the British armed forces, and that somehow one could declare the British armed forces to be an enemy without declaring the British Government to be one? The armed forces of Hezbollah are under the control and direction of the political arm of Hezbollah, and therefore they must be treated as one.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who is entirely right. More to the point, Hezbollah itself agrees with him, because in 2000 its deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, declared:

“Hezbollah’s Secretary-General is the head of the Shura Council and also the head of the Jihad Council, and this means that we have one leadership with one administration.”

In 2012, Qassem said:

“We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other. Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, is in the service of the resistance and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”

So Hezbollah is, in reality, a single entity, and it is ludicrous to suggest that it is not.

As a single entity, Hezbollah is a threat to the entire world. British interests, not least, are affected by it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) gave a catalogue of the extent to which Hezbollah carries out activities that are directly threatening British interests, and is also carrying out crimes on the streets of Britain. At an unarguably less dangerous but nevertheless highly offensive level, Hezbollah protesters routinely display Hezbollah flags on the streets of London at events such as al-Quds day, disingenuously labelling them flags of the political wing of Hezbollah, rather than its military wing.

It is very clear that the partial ban is not having the desired effect, or much effect at all. The Government have contended that banning the organisation in its totality might destabilise the political order in Lebanon. I would suggest, however, that the greatest destabilising influence in Lebanon is Hezbollah itself. Even as we debate today, four Hezbollah members are being tried before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in connection with the murder of the late Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri. Hezbollah forces have supported the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The organisation continues to conduct terrorist attacks against Israeli interests.

While I understand the Government’s concerns and anxieties, I suggest that partial proscription has not had the effect either of curbing Hezbollah’s terrorist activities or of clearing Hezbollah from the United Kingdom. Hezbollah is on our streets, defiantly waving its flags and thumbing its nose at the British Government. I consequently urge the Government to reconsider their stance and to conclude that Hezbollah—a dangerous, aggressive terrorist organisation that is a threat to regional stability and to the security of this country—should be proscribed in its entirety.