Joan Ryan
Main Page: Joan Ryan (The Independent Group for Change - Enfield North)Department Debates - View all Joan Ryan's debates with the Home Office
(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation driven by an antisemitic ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel; notes that Hezbollah declares itself to be one organisation without distinguishable political or military wings; is concerned that the military wing of that organisation is proscribed, but its political wing is not; and calls on the Government to include Hezbollah in its entirety on the list of proscribed organisations.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is bringing this issue to the House. I do not know whether she is aware of this, but in December the Government held a debate on the extension of proscribed organisations. During that debate, the Minister for Security and Economic Crime told me that only the military organisation of Hezbollah was proscribed, but that Hezbollah supporters who engaged in terrorist activities in this country would be prosecuted.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that terrorist activities should not be the only grounds for prosecution, and that there should be prosecutions for incitement to hatred, incitement to anti-Semitism and other crimes that are being committed on the streets of London? As the Mayor of London has said, Hezbollah should be banned in its entirety.
Joan Ryan
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and I thank him for that intervention, which I take as 100% support for the motion.
I am the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, an organisation that has campaigned for many years on the issue that we are addressing. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, driven by anti-Semitic ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel. It has wreaked death and destruction throughout the middle east, aiding and abetting the Assad regime’s butchery in Syria and helping to drive Iran’s expansionism throughout the region. It makes no distinction between its political and military wings, and nor should the British Government.
In 2010, the Obama Administration labelled Hezbollah
“the most technically capable terrorist group in the world”.
Over the past three decades, it has been implicated in a string of deadly attacks against Israeli, Jewish and western targets in the middle east and far beyond. Its operatives have been arrested for plotting or carrying out attacks across the globe, in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. The litany of death and violence widely attributed to Hezbollah includes the 1983 murder in Beirut of 241 American and 58 French peacekeepers; the 1986 wave of bombings against Jewish communal targets in Paris, in which 13 people died; the 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people died; the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Jewish mutual association, which led to the deaths of 85 people; the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in which 19 US servicemen lost their lives and nearly 500 people were injured; and the 2012 attack on a bus of Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas, in which six people were murdered and for which two people finally went on trial last week.
Such terrorist acts are promoted, glorified and encouraged by the Hezbollah leadership. Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, has, for instance, praised suicide bombings—or “martyrdom operations”, as he prefers to describe them—as
“legitimate, honourable, legal, humanitarian and ethical actions”
saying that “those who love death” will triumph over those who fear it.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
The right hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that the 1,000 or so people who marched in London under the Hezbollah flag subscribe to the very agenda that she has described? There is no difference between the military and political wings of Hezbollah, as it continually acknowledges. The only recognition of a difference is in UK policy; it does not exist in reality. It is time for that policy to change.
Joan Ryan
I agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for that intervention. He is completely right to say that there is no distinction and we need to be clear about that.
Hezbollah’s actions are driven by a deep-seated, intractable and vicious hatred of Jews. The House does not need to take my word for it; Hezbollah’s leaders have proudly boasted of their anti-Semitism:
“If they all gather in Israel,”
declared Nasrallah,
“it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
Nor is Nasrallah a lone voice. Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, has said that
“the history of Jews has proven that, regardless of the Zionist proposal, they are people who are evil in their ideas”.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that, as well as being anti-Semitic, Hezbollah has assassinated and murdered Christians? As the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) has said, any distinction between a military part and a political part of Hezbollah is entirely without meaning.
Joan Ryan
I have no difficulty agreeing with my hon. Friend on that point. Hezbollah has killed probably more Muslims than anybody else, as well as Christians, Jews and others.
Hezbollah’s leaders and its media peddle classic anti-Semitic tropes and lies. They refer to Jews in the basest of terms, labelling them “apes and pigs”, and suggesting that
“you will find no one more miserly or greedy than they are”.
Hezbollah’s leaders and media make spurious claims about Jewish conspiracies and world domination, and they deny the Holocaust, suggesting that
“the Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities”.
Hezbollah’s hatred of Jews is a noxious mix, which, in the words of one writer, fuses
“Arab nationalist-based anti-Zionism, anti-Jewish rhetoric from the Koran, and, most disturbingly, the antique anti-Semitic beliefs and conspiracy theories of European fascism”.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
I just want to highlight the backers of Hezbollah, the Iranians, who provide training and weapons, including rockets. While the Iranians’ malevolent influence continues throughout the middle east, they are jeopardising the prospects for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis and posing a strategic threat to the very state of Israel.
Joan Ryan
The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point with which I absolutely agree. I will come to it a little later.
Hezbollah is a menace throughout the middle east, but Israel is its principal target. That is no secret. In its founding manifesto in 1985, in which it also pledged its loyalty to Ayatollah Khomeini and urged the establishment of an Islamic regime, Hezbollah says of Israel:
“Our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated… We recognise no treaty with it, no cease-fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.”
This is no mere rhetorical sabre-rattling; Hezbollah vehemently opposed the Oslo peace process and has fought any normalisation of relations between Israel and Arab countries. On numerous occasions—most notably in 1993, 1996 and 2006—it has sought to provoke conflict with Israel, and the consequences have been disastrous and devastating for the peoples of both Israel and Lebanon.
In 2006, Hezbollah kidnapped and murdered Israeli soldiers on the country’s northern border and proceeded to launch Katyusha rockets to indiscriminately pound the Jewish state. The resulting conflict led to large numbers of civilian casualties and the evacuation of several hundred thousand people. In defiance of UN resolution 1701, which brought the conflict to an end, Hezbollah has spent the last decade restocking its arsenal and rebuilding its forces in Lebanon. It has trebled the size of its fighting force from 17,000 to 45,000 men. It has launched an arms procurement programme, amassing short, medium and long-range missiles and rockets, drones, precision-guided projectiles, anti-tank weaponry and ballistic missiles. It now has an estimated 120,000 to 140,000 rockets and missiles—an arsenal larger than that of many states.
That Hezbollah has been allowed to replenish and then expand its armoury in this manner represents a terrible failure on the part of the international community, a breaking of the assurances provided to Israel and a betrayal of the people of Lebanon and Israel. The implications are truly horrifying. Andrew Exum, an expert on the region and President Obama’s former deputy assistant secretary of defence for middle east policy, wrote recently:
“I shudder to think what the next conflict will look like.”
Hezbollah has no qualms about such a war. It does not care about the loss of thousands of civilian lives—of Israelis, Lebanese, Jews, Muslims and Christians—that its aggression will lead to.
Quite deliberately, Hezbollah has embedded its forces and weaponry in towns and villages, turning the people of southern Lebanon into human shields. Quite deliberately, it will, as it has done in the past, target civilian population centres in Israel, even vowing, in the words of Nasrallah, that there will be “no red lines” in any future conflict—he underlined the pledge with threats to attack the Dimona nuclear reactor and the ammonia storage facility in Haifa. Quite deliberately, it will seek to draw in other regional actors. Its capacity may be many times greater than those of other terrorist groups, but its aim—to instil terror by inflicting mass civilian casualties—is the same as that of those who wage attacks on targets big and small throughout the world, and of those who attacked London Bridge, the Manchester arena and this House only last year.
Hezbollah has not simply exported terror globally and wreaked havoc in Israel and Lebanon; its bloody fingerprints are all over the Syrian civil war, the most brutal conflict of this century. In 2016, it was estimated that more than a quarter of Hezbollah’s forces were engaged in fighting on behalf of the murderous Assad regime. It has not only contributed to the killing fields of Aleppo and Homs; it has helped to eliminate the non-extremist opposition to Assad, thus contributing to the ranks of Sunni jihadists and stirring sectarian hatred.
Hezbollah has indeed become Iran’s indispensable partner—the Blackwater of Iran, as some have labelled it—helping to promote and further Tehran’s expansionist agenda throughout the middle east, in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Such a vast enterprise cannot be run on the cheap, so in addition to the vast sums of weaponry and cash lavished on it by Iran, the party of God is now engaged in money laundering, arms sales and drugs smuggling. It works through informal networks and centrally run enterprises. The latter, one leading middle east expert told the US Congress last summer, were operating like “international organised criminal entities”.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Do not the various elements that my right hon. Friend is describing show the indivisible nature of Hezbollah? It does not have separate wings but is one criminal terrorist entity.
Joan Ryan
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a distinction that Hezbollah not only does not recognise but denies.
As the House will be aware, the British Government have long held the view that Hezbollah’s military wing is involved in conducting and supporting terrorism. In 2001, the Hezbollah External Security Organisation was added to the list of proscribed organisations. In 2008, this proscription was extended by a reference to the
“military wing of Hezbollah, including the Jihad Council and all units reporting to it (including the Hezbollah External Security Organisation)”.
Hezbollah’s political wing, however, is not proscribed, even though this distinction is not one that Hezbollah itself has ever recognised.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case and we are grateful to her for bringing this to the House. Does she not agree that it should make both the Government Front-Bench team and our Opposition Front-Bench team deeply uneasy that they are effectively in an alliance in refusing to recognise the bogus distinction between the so-called military wing and the rest?
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
Is the right hon. Lady aware of the ComRes poll showing that 81% of the public want Hezbollah proscribed in its entirety, and does she agree—I see that there are some very honourable Members on the Opposition Benches—that the Labour Front-Bench team has got this wrong and should agree with the motion, not oppose it?
Joan Ryan
Obviously—unless the Labour Front-Bench team is agreeing with my position—we have a difference of opinion, but I am calling on the Government to change their position. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but his point would have far more weight and power if he addressed it to his own Front-Bench team, as they are in a position to lead on this but are not doing so.
Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
It is so great to see you back in your seat, Mr Deputy Speaker. I high-tailed it from my office in Norman Shaw South when I saw the right hon. Lady on the television screen and was absolutely inspired by the passion with which she is speaking. She is a friend of Israel, and I am a friend of Israel, but does she agree that you do not have to be a friend of Israel to believe that Hezbollah, in its entirety, is a terrorist organisation? You can be a friend of Syria, a friend of Lebanon or a friend of the entire middle east, but you should want Hezbollah, in its entirety, to be banned.
Joan Ryan
Well said—I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and it should be banned in its entirety—whoever you are a friend of—if you are not a friend of the terrorists. I would add one other thing: it is not just for Jews to fight anti-Semitism, and this is an anti-Semitic organisation; it is for all of us to stand up on that issue.
The distinction is not one that Hezbollah has ever recognised; in fact, it has consistently and explicitly refuted it. In 1985, its founding document stated clearly:
“As to our military power, nobody can imagine its dimensions because we do not have a military agency separate from the other parts of our body. Each of us is a combat soldier when the call of jihad demands it.”
It could not be clearer.
In 2009, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy general secretary, made it clear that
“the same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel”.
It could not be clearer. He repeated this message three years later, declaring:
“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, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”
Those are Hezbollah’s own words.
Also in 2013, Nasrallah himself ruled out any notion that the military and political wings were somehow different:
“However, jokingly I will say—though I disagree on such separation or division—that I suggest that our ministers in the upcoming Lebanese government be from the military wing of Hezbollah.”
He also mocked our Government’s division between the two, saying
“the story of military wing and political wing is the work of the British”.
That is what he said. It is a distinction that, with good reason, many other countries throughout the world do not recognise. Those that do not include the Netherlands, Canada, the US, the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
The right hon. Lady’s passion and clarity on this issue are absolutely right. I agree that it is incumbent on the Government in principle—I hope those in the Opposition Front-Bench team would follow—to change the policy. Is it not absolutely possible to work with the Government of Lebanon—a Government with whom we are extremely friendly and whom we are assisting to defend herself against the predations of ISIS, initially, and now of other factions in Syria? Is it not absolutely possible to assist our legitimate and welcome allies in Lebanon against those things, yet still call out this terrorist group for what it is, for the violence it is committing in Syria and for the destruction it is carrying out in northern Israel and all around the region?
Joan Ryan
Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right. Those Governments that do proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety do talk to the Lebanese Government. If Hezbollah wishes to change its views on Israel—to not obliterate it—and to signal that it will give up its arms, I am sure that, whether it is proscribed or not, that would be the right road to take if it wished to take part in any peace negotiations, which it clearly does not.
Many Members of this House do not recognise the false distinction between the military and the political wing, as is evident today. Last summer, marchers at the al-Quds day parade in London displayed Hezbollah flags, causing great offence to many, especially in the Jewish community. Once again, they were exploiting the utterly bogus separation that the Government choose to make.
I pay tribute to Jewish communal organisations, such as the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, which have tirelessly campaigned on the issue of Hezbollah proscription. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), as well as the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and the Mayor of London, for their efforts to persuade the Government to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety.
I note not only the Government’s unwillingness to do so but their inability to explain or justify why they will not act. I understand that, in conflict situations, it is sometimes necessary to keep open channels of communication to facilitate dialogue and to encourage those who are engaged in violence to abandon the bomb and the bullet for the ballot box. However, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that this is Hezbollah’s intention. In both its rhetoric and its actions, this leopard shows no sign of changing its spots.
Nor do I accept the notion, which Ministers have previously advanced, that banning Hezbollah’s political wing might somehow—the Chair of the Select Committee touched on this—impede our ties with Lebanon, where Hezbollah exercises not just military but political power. Proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety does not appear to have hampered relations between Lebanon and any of the countries we have already referred to. I am deeply concerned that this Government are simply not taking the threat posed by Hezbollah seriously. Only last week, I was informed by the Home Office that it does not collect data on the numbers of Hezbollah members or supporters in the UK, a practice that is followed by other European countries, such as Germany.
The Terrorism Act 2000 allows the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation which
“(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,
(b) prepares for terrorism,
(c) promotes or encourages terrorism,”
including the unlawful glorification of terrorism, or
“(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism.”
As I have demonstrated, Hezbollah, the leaders of which assert that it is unified and indivisible, more than fulfils those criteria. Even if a distinction between the political and military wings could be drawn, the words of the former in promoting, encouraging and glorifying terrorism surely meet the Government’s criteria for proscription.
After last June’s terrorist attack at London Bridge, the Prime Minister said
“there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”
I agree. Hezbollah is an organisation that is driven by a hatred of Jews, that promotes and encourages terrorism and that calls for the destruction of the middle east’s only democracy—a key British ally in the region. However, as long as the Government do not proscribe Hezbollah’s so-called political wing, the tolerance will continue.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Offord
I am not in favour of banning things, I have to say. But the hurt, resentment, agitation and general disruption that this annual march causes—not only to the Metropolitan police, but to the people of London—should in itself lead to its being banned. This year, I called again on the Metropolitan police not to allow the march to go ahead. Infuriatingly, days after the Grenfell Tower fire, with the police massively stretched by the tragedy, the organisers insisted on going ahead with the march even though the Met did not have the resources to police it. That was reprehensible on the part of the IHRC.
This year, the march was led by a director of the IHRC, Nazim Ali, who in a speech, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) mentioned, blamed the Grenfell fire tragedy on
“the Zionist supporters of the Tory Party”.
He also accused the Israel Defence Forces of being a
“terrorist organisation that murdered Palestinians, Jews and British soldiers.”
Participants in the rally called for the destruction of Israel and waved slogans, including one stating “We are all Hezbollah”. Shockingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the Leader of the Opposition has spoken at the annual event in the past. I take this opportunity to call on him not to do so again in future.
As we have heard, senior Hezbollah officials have repeatedly said that Hezbollah is a single entity, proudly stating that “resistance” is their “priority”, and even publicly mocking the UK and other European countries for distinguishing between the two wings.
Dr Offord
The right hon. Lady has made a really good point, and I want to respond; I am grateful that she took my intervention earlier. She is absolutely right—there is an issue with not only Labour Front Benchers but Government Front Benchers. I certainly hope that they hear what I am saying today. This is not about one party or another. I do not seek to make this a party political issue, but when I see the shadow Home Secretary rolling her eyes at some of the comments made by Labour Back Benchers, that makes me think that her heart is not really in this issue and that she is not as concerned as many Government Members—or, indeed, many Opposition Members.
According to Home Office guidance,
“Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if she believes it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do. For the purposes of the Act, this means that the organisation: commits or participates in acts of terrorism; prepares for terrorism; promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism); or is otherwise concerned in terrorism”.
It is worth reiterating that senior Hezbollah officials have openly and repeatedly stated that no substantive separation exists between so-called “political” and “military” wings. Given that fact, I believe that Hezbollah meets the criteria for full proscription under the Terrorism Act.
It is not just the Jewish community in this country who are distressed by Hezbollah’s overt presence in the UK; it also distresses those of us who deplore terrorism and hate all kinds of bigotry and those of us who want this country to be a welcoming and safe place for our many diverse communities.
A number of Members are unable to be here today because they have returned to their constituencies. No doubt they will be attending this weekend’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. However, we must not underestimate the strength of feeling among the British public in favour of rooting out anti-Semitism and hatred wherever it occurs. Anti-Semitism is rising throughout Europe, and as we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday, we must be the ones to say, “Enough is enough.” It is in the best interests of us all to proscribe Hezbollah in full.
Let us demonstrate our commitment to tackling extremism by finally putting aside the mistaken belief that Hezbollah has a political wing. It quite simply does not exist. My constituents think we should not wait any longer before admitting that, and so do I.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for his intervention, but let us make the position clear today: we want the proscription of Hezbollah. That is the thrust of this debate. That is what we are about. There are not two wings in Hezbollah.
Joan Ryan
I should like to clarify this point. Most members of the armed forces cannot comment on these issues, but very senior members of our armed forces who are no longer actively serving have made it clear that they think that this is a false division, and that Hezbollah should be proscribed in its entirety. I agree with them, although I understand that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) is not saying that he supports Hezbollah.
Jim Shannon
I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. In a moment, I will give the House an example of an ex-soldier who has knowledge of the situation and whose position will become clear. Perhaps then, everyone in the Chamber will understand why we need and want this proscription.
Hezbollah leaders have openly stated that there is no separation between its component parts. The group in its entirety meets the criteria for full proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. Its leaders have repeatedly encouraged terrorism and supported jihad and martyrdom. Hezbollah has been responsible for attacks on Jewish people across the globe, yet last year, as the hon. Member for Newark witnessed, people with Hezbollah flags marched down Oxford Street celebrating al-Quds day with complete disregard and with the AK-47 on their flags. If that is not provocative and illegal, I would like to know what is. Along with the flags and banners that day, we had all the associated inflammatory rhetoric because the purpose of the demonstration was to agitate for violent resistance and the destruction of the state of Israel under the euphemism of “liberating al-Quds”—Jerusalem. The context was militaristic, not political.
The domestic consequence of the current Government policy that the Minister will repeat in due course is a fabricated division that allows public support for a terrorist organisation and anti-Semitism to flourish freely on our streets. These actions are detrimental to social cohesion and damaging to community relations, and that is why Hezbollah must be banned. Many Members across the Chamber have made it clear that we have taken a stance against anti-Semitism. The Government have taken a stance against it, but there are others who need to be stronger when it comes to taking that stance, and we encourage them to do so.
Colonel Richard Kemp, to whom I referred a moment ago, is the former head of the international terrorism team at the Cabinet Office. I hope that we can all respect the fact that his credentials are impeccable as he explains his view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s position. He says:
“The Foreign Office deludes itself that by appeasing Hezbollah it can influence the organisation. And that it will do its killing elsewhere. Instead this gives legitimacy to Hezbollah. Piling appeasement on appeasement, Britain and the rest of the EU hope to mollify Iran, the biggest state supporter of terrorism. They know designating Hezbollah would enrage the ayatollahs.”
Joan Ryan
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for accompanying me to the Committee to apply for it. For contributing today, I thank the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and the hon. Member for Strangford. Their powerful contributions have been much appreciated.
I draw attention to the fact that not a single Back-Bench Member who has spoken or intervened today has opposed the motion, which I think speaks volumes about where the House is on the matter. The public agree with us. As the hon. Member for Hendon said, a ComRes poll reported today shows that 81% of the public also believe that Hezbollah should be proscribed in its entirety.
The SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), said that he is sympathetic to the motion. We welcome that sympathy and hope that it will turn into something a little more forceful policy-wise.
I very much hope to persuade my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), who speaks from the Labour Front Bench, that proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety is the right thing to do. I hope to have further discussions with him on this. However, I appreciate the tone that he took in the debate.
The havoc, death and destruction that Hezbollah has caused in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Israel—indeed, across the middle east—as well as in Nigeria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Argentina, Thailand and other places have been outlined today, to our horror. What about the streets of London? The CST has made it clear that the domestic consequences of the artificial division with regard to Hezbollah has consequences here: a policy is pursued that allows public support for a terrorist and anti-Semitic organisation.
The argument the Minister made is a little tortuous. The US, Canada and others proscribe Hezbollah and still manage to talk to it. No peace has been forthcoming from Hezbollah, despite not proscribing it. We are giving moral, political and social authority to Hezbollah by not proscribing it in its entirety. Hezbollah itself does not agree with the Government. The Government should look again at their position. Keeping this under review is not adequate. They are wrong.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House believes that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation driven by an antisemitic ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel; notes that Hezbollah declares itself to be one organisation without distinguishable political or military wings; is concerned that the military wing of that organisation is proscribed, but its political wing is not; and calls on the Government to include Hezbollah in its entirety on the list of proscribed organisations.