Proscription of Hezbollah

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Abu Qatada

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. As I have said, the Jordanian Government have been very helpful in our discussions about Abu Qatada. What is significant is that the way in which the Jordanian system operates today is different from the portrayal given by the European Court; a significant number of changes have taken place. Indeed, when I was in Jordan, everything that people were saying to me, both at Government level and through officials and others, was that they see Jordan continuing to move forward on this issue of human rights.

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

The Home Secretary has remained admirably calm in her responses to a string of former and wannabe Home Office Ministers on the Labour Benches, whose bluster has not concealed the fact that they utterly failed, over the course of nine years, to make any progress in getting this man out of this country. Will the Home Secretary assure me that Abu Qatada will no longer be residing in the United Kingdom long before there is next a Labour Home Secretary?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a route of prediction. What I will say to him is that, as everybody in this House knows, it has taken considerable time to get to where we are at the moment. There are further processes to go through, but I believe that what the Government have done is to take absolutely the right course, which is to get together the assurances that we need to be able to resume deportation. I have every confidence in our eventual success in being able to achieve that deportation.

English Language Schools

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I should first apologise for my croaky voice: I spent rather too much of yesterday afternoon shouting at the television.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) on what was, frankly, a very classy maiden speech. I hope that it will be the first of many conventions that he will overturn. I also declare an interest, in that I have spent, it seems, quite a lot of the past six months helping a young Israeli friend of mine try to navigate his way through the bureaucratic, Kafkaesque nightmare that is the process of applying for a tier 4 general student visa—and it is just that: a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Like my hon. Friend, I support the Government’s attempts to restrain excessive immigration, which has been such a problem in recent years, and in particular—he described this in more detail—the attempt to crack down on abuses by cowboy colleges and gangs that abuse illegal immigrants’ desire to get into this country. However, I believe that the previous Government’s approach was wholly misconceived. Instead of focusing ruthlessly on closing down the cowboy colleges that are colluding in fraud, they resorted to a process of ever-shifting bureaucratic meddling, in order to make the application process as complicated as possible.

I would like to give a specific example. I believe that I have a reasonable command of my mother tongue. I also have two degrees from moderately okay universities—one in this country and one in the United States—but it took me literally hours to help my friend fill out those forms and understand the supporting documentation that was required.

I will give hon. Members one example. Any student has to demonstrate—quite rightly—that they have enough funds to maintain themselves while they remain in the UK. The current requirement is for them to produce a bank statement showing that they have the funds in their bank account back home for 30 days. That is fair enough—I do not think that any of us would complain about that—but the bank statement has to be stamped by the bank, even though it is a statement from the bank. However, the statement does not have to be just stamped by the bank; it has to be signed by the bank manager. And that is not all: the statement also has to list the equivalent amounts in the account in sterling, and applicants can use only one website for that.

My hon. Friend has made the point that English is our greatest asset and our greatest competitive advantage. We must change the system, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will do what he can to help.