Proscription of Hezbollah

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[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?

[Joan Ryan]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am hoping that both Front-Bench teams will take note of my speech and come forward with policy decisions that support proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Austin]

The hon. Gentleman is right about that. It is a point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North made when she opened the debate and that was made eloquently by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

It is unacceptable to see Hezbollah’s flag waved on the streets of Britain, and it is disgusting to hear the virulently racist abuse and racist chants that accompany it. So I agree with many of the comments that have been made today, but I want to focus on three particular issues.

First I want to talk about Hezbollah’s role in the middle east and its impact on the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. We have debated that many times in this House, but we should be under absolutely no illusion about the difficult issues that will need to be confronted in the negotiations—borders, land swaps, the status of Jerusalem, settlements and so on. Let us be really honest about this; none of those issues remotely interest Hezbollah. It is not interested in the compromises that all sides will need to make to bring about a two-state solution. Its sole interest is the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah has made that absolutely clear. It declared in 1992 that the war is on

“until Israel ceases to exist and the last Jew in the world has been eliminated. Israel is completely evil and must be erased from the face of the Earth.”

That is why, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah’s response was not peace but the murder and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and an avalanche of rocket attacks just six years later. It is why, today, Hezbollah, thanks to its Iranian paymasters, threatens Israel by pointing 120,000 to 140,000 rockets at the country.

In October, Hassan Nasrallah, in just one of the Hezbollah leader’s many threats, urged Jews to flee Israel before it is devastated by war. Last February, he warned that there would be “no red lines” in any future conflict between the terror group and Israel. In April, he boasted of his organisation’s preparedness for war, and in June he spoke of the “hundreds of thousands” of Shi’a fighters from across the middle east who would rush to Hezbollah’s side when it next takes the fight to the Jewish state.

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case, as he always does. Does he agree that it is also important to keep reminding people of the role that Hezbollah has played in training the Houthi rebels, who are causing such terrible carnage, destruction and death in Yemen?

[Ian Austin]

In Lebanon and Israel, in Syria and Yemen, Hezbollah is causing carnage. That is its stated aim.