German lawmakers are considering outlawing the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
According to a draft resolution sponsored by the AfD Party, the Bundestag will debate a non-binding resolution to “examine whether the conditions exist for a ban on Hezbollah as one organization, and, if necessary, to issue such a prohibition and implement it immediately.”
The resolution says the at the Iranian proxy group represents a “danger to [Germany’s] constitutional order.”
Germany, like the European Union, only considers Hezbollah’s so-called military wing as a terrorist organization. Nevertheless, E.U. members the Netherlands and United Kingdom consider all of Hezbollah a terrorist entity, as do the United States, Canada, Israel and even the Arab League.
“Hezbollah’s goal is the destruction of Israel and the Jews, and we should not be offering a safe haven for them to hide in Germany and finance their armed struggle in Lebanon against Israel from our territory,” senior AfD MP Beatrix von Storch said in a statement.
Last week, German Jewish leaders called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to fully outlaw Hezbollah.
“The Central Council of Jews in Germany calls for a ban of the Shi’ite militia Hezbollah,” said their leader, Josef Schuster, in the Germany daily Jewish paper Jüdische Allgemeine.
Schuster said that “a full ban of Hezbollah’s organization has already happened in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,” adding that “Hezbollah is heavily financed by Iran, and Hezbollah poses, in its entirety, a threat to the entire world.”
“A continuation of the distinction between their individual wings would be negligent and should therefore be corrected as soon as possible,” said Schuster.
In a meeting last week with Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged the German government to fully ban the terror group.
“We’re also hoping to get Germany’s help—and we talked about this today—in recognizing Hezbollah as a unified entity and banning it from Germany as our ally, the United Kingdom, did this year,” said Pompeo.
