AJC Ad Urges Labeling Hezbollah A Terror Organization

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Oct 20, 2020, 10:18 ET

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a full-page ad in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, American Jewish Committee (AJC) is calling again on the 27-member European Union (EU) to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The ad is the latest effort in a multi-year, broad-based campaign by the global advocacy organization to raise awareness about the reality of Hezbollah, and to press the international community to label the Iranian-supported, Lebanon-based group as a terrorist organization. AJC produced analyses, reports and other resources, including a petition to the EU, on Hezbollah are available at AJC.org/Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, armed and supported by Iran. It has a global – and deadly – reach from Europe to North and South America, from Africa to Asia, and across the Middle East. Indeed, this week in 1983, two Hezbollah attacks in Lebanon killed 305 American and French peacekeepers," states the AJC ad. "Yet, defying all logic, the European Union insists there are actually two Hezbollahs – one 'political,' the other 'military,' banning only the latter in 2013."

For well over two decades, AJC has been urging governments across Europe — and around the world — to label Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and take concrete measures to contain and confront its activities, including money laundering, narco-trafficking, smuggling explosives and weapons, and creating active cells on every continent.

To date, the Arab League, Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Guatemala, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Honduras, Israel, Kosovo, Lithuania, Netherlands, Serbia, United Kingdom, and United States have recognized without qualifications the reality of Hezbollah, and added it to their lists of terrorist organizations.

The list includes seven more countries than appeared in a similar AJC ad a year ago, which appeared in The New York Times on September 24, 2019, and was widely shared with world leaders attending the UN General Assembly opening debate in New York.

"Other countries, we earnestly hope, will join this growing trend to shed any lingering illusions and confront the stark truth that Hezbollah is one indivisible organization, and that organization is terrorist through and through," said AJC CEO David Harris.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee