LONDON—Britain’s Interior Minister is set to announce next week a total ban on Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group, the Jewish Chronicle reported. Until now only the so-called ‘’armed wing’’ of the organization was banned since 2008 and not its ‘’political arm.’’. This allowed Islamists to take part in the annual Al Quds March in central London and wave Hezbollah’s yellow flag despite protests from the Jewish community and pro-Israel groups.
Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Sajid Javid will use his speech at next week’s Conservative Party annual conference to announce the total ban which has long been called for by the Jewish community and others concerned with terrorism, including the UK’s Zionist Federation, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust.
Javid, who is considered to be a staunch ally of the Jewish community, has reportedly receive backing for his decision to certify Hezbollah as an illegal terrorist organisation from the new British Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt.
According to a report from the Interior Ministry, Hezbollah “is committed to armed resistance to the state of Israel and aims to seize all Palestinian territories and Jerusalem from Israel,” and “its military wing supports terrorism in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.”
Hezbollah is already considered a terror group by America, Canada, Israel and the Arab League.
The report about a total ban of Hezbollah is published as the Labour Party conference takes place this week in Liverpool. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had referred to representatives from terror organisations Hezbollah and Hamas as “friends” in 2009.
The Israeli-Jewish Congress (IJC) strongly welcomed the news of the British government’s decision to ban the terrorist group Hezbollah in its entirety.
”The decision is long overdue, but it is just, right and proper, in the face of overwhelming evidence regarding the group’s terrorist activities, which are unmistakably led, run and funded by the regime of Iran, posing not only a direct threat to the State of Israel, but Europe and the region as a whole,” stated Vladimir Sloutsker, president of the Israeli-Jewish Congress (ICJ).
He expressed the hope that ”others in Europe follow the UK’s lead in once and for all banning this terrorist organization in full.”