EU counterterrorism coordinator: Hezbullah not on terror list

"The European Union's counterterrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerckhove says Lebanon's Hezbollah is not on the list of terror groups. Gilles de Kerckhove said the EU would not put Hezbollah on the list of terror groups because several member states, including France, oppose such a move. The EU official made the comment in a seminar on 'Terrorism and Europe' organized at the European Parliament in Brussels.

According to de Kerckhove, the reluctance of several to take a step against Hezbollah lies in the fact that it is represented in the government of Lebanon. "It plays a role on the Lebanese political scene and several countries think that this could bring them closer to the democratic process," he added.

German Liberal MEP Alexander Alvaro, one of the co-sponsors of the call to blacklist Hezbollah, said that "900 Hezbollah sleepers are stationed within Germany."

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"The situation is probably not very different elsewhere," underlining that a terrorist group label would enable the "drying out of its activities in Europe."

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Source: Israel witout ifs or buts

On the same subject:

EU not eager to put Hezbollah on terror list, official says

Belgian newspaper journalist held by Hezbollah in Beirut

Imagine the uproar that such a blatant act of intimidation against a journalist would have caused had it happened in Israel.

French freelance journalist David Hury tells in an article in the Belgian daily Le Soir how he was detained and intimidated by Hezbollah supporters. Hury was taking photographs at the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, when he was stopped. He was questioned about his private life, professional activities and was forced to disclose his e-mail box password. His ordeal lasted six hours.

Both Reporters Without Borders and Le Soir issued statements about the incident.

As an aside, it is ironic that Hezbollah treated this badly a journalist on assignment for Le Soir whose coverage of Israel is notoriously hostile... but maybe not enough to Hezbollah's liking.

- Belgian newspaper Le Soir claims that Israel prefers Western immigrants
- Belgian newspaper Le Soir shows picture of bodies of Palestinian children
..

Lebanon: barbaric unity around Samir Kuntar

Editorial in TJP:

"Putting decades of vicious sectarian, political and personality differences aside, Lebanon's body politic came together Wednesday night in a heartfelt display of national unity: Samir Kuntar had been brought home.

After a nearly 30-year absence, there he stood before the frantic multitude, this progeny of Lebanon - whose road to manhood took him from out-of-control juvenile delinquent to adolescent child-killer to unremorseful mature terrorist - in army fatigues, waving the Lebanese and Hizbullah flags, arm outstretched in the Hizbullah salute, a manic glint in his eyes. A true son of his country.

In a flash, the face of the new Lebanon was unmasked. As celebratory music helped work the crowd into a frenzy, and with Kuntar and several other released terrorists on stage as props, the real "hero" and personification of that new Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged for a few moments - his first appearance since January. The Druse-born Kuntar impulsively kissed his beaming hero. Nasrallah did not reciprocate.

"The age of defeats is gone, and the age of victories has come. This people, this nation gave a great and clear image today to its friends and enemies that it cannot be defeated," Nasrallah told the jubilant crowd.

He was then whisked away by bodyguards to a hiding place from which he delivered the rest of his address, broadcast over a gigantic screen set up in the south Beirut square where the welcoming ceremonies were held.

"One of the greatest fortunes is that the unity government welcomed the freed prisoners," Nasrallah declared.

A while earlier the red carpet had been rolled out at Beirut International Airport, as warlords and politicians from rival factions welcomed Kuntar and the other released gunmen as national heroes.

Druse leader Walid Jumblatt proudly recalled that his father, Kamal (assassinated by Syria), had been in the vanguard of Lebanon's Palestinian cause. Christian Maronite president Michael Aoun [Michel Sleiman ?] cited Lebanese unity in the struggle against the Jewish state and commitment to "the return of the Palestinians to their land." Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and boss of the Shi'ite Amal movement, was there, as was "pro-American" Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, a Sunni Muslim.

Rounding out the delegation were the Sunni majority leader of parliament, Saad Hariri (whose father was also assassinated by Syria) and Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun. They put aside their own differences and their disputes with Nasrallah to give each of the returning "militants" a hug and a kiss.

A vital lesson Israeli strategists must draw from this nauseating display of perverted unity: Lebanon and Hizbullah are one. If, heaven forbid, there is another war, the IDF must wage it with ferocity - not on Hizbullah's terms, but across the Lebanese battlefield. (...)

Now that Lebanon and Hizbullah have apparently melded, the self-defeating legacy of IDF inhibition must end. At the start of the Second Lebanon War, former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz warned bombastically that Israel would "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years" if Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were not returned.

No one took him seriously - Israel would never punish "good Lebanon" for the crimes of "bad Hizbullah." The IAF limited itself to mostly targeting Islamist strongholds. But if Lebanon and Hizbullah are now one, Israel needs a radically revised strategy for winning a war on Lebanese soil.

Artificial distinctions between "Lebanese" and "Hizbullah" targets were swept away by Wednesday's display of barbaric unity. Lebanon was revealed in its hostile unanimity. If new conflict comes, Israel must internalize that unanimity of hate-filled purpose, and defeat it decisively."

Kuntar's photo via Israelly Cool: Separated at Birth: Heil Kuntar Edition

Achille Lauro: the Palestinian hijacker nobody wants

Source: Bennauro (Israel without ifs or buts)

"Abdellatif Ibrahim Fatayer, one of the men convicted of hijacking the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985, was freed in Rome on Monday.

Fatayer, who was born in the Tel al-Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, is the youngest of the hijackers. According to the Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, Fatayer was expected to be deported from Italy after serving a 21-year sentence plus three years under police surveillance. But Lebanon refused to accept him after he was freed from jail.

Fatayer was sentenced to 25 years' jail by an appeals court in the northern Italian city of Genoa but was freed after serving 21 years in April 2008, although he continued to remain under police surveillance.

He was one of four Palestinian terrorists who hijacked the ship on 7 October 1985, taking hostage 450 people in exchange for the release of 82 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. During the siege they shot and killed a wheelchair bound Jewish-American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, before throwing his body overboard.

At the beginning of April, a judge said Fatayer could be freed but could not obtain a residency permit to remain in Italy due to his previous terrorist activities. He was transferred to Rome's Ponte Galeria temporary reception centre, but was freed on Monday because Lebanon, his country of birth, does not recognise him as a citizen because he is a Palestinian refugee.

Of the other three hijackers, one disappeared in 1994 while on parole, one died in 2004 and the third, Youssef Al-molqi was sentenced to 30 years' jail in Italy. The militants belonged to the Palestine Liberation Front, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation considered the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people at the time."