Talking Points
• Hezbollah poses a greater potential terrorist threat to the United States and to the European
Union than al-Qaeda does, by virtue of the unstinting support it receives from
Iran and Syria.
• The EU has adopted an ostrich-like policy that mistakenly accepts the fiction that Hezbollah’s “political wing” can be distinguished from its terrorist wing.
• The EU must designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group and ban its activities to protect European citizens from terrorist attacks and prohibit Hezbollah fundraising operations in Europe.
• Funds raised in Europe enable Hezbollah to threaten the stability of Lebanon, undermine
the security of Israel, obstruct Arab–Israeli peace efforts, and help Iran to destabilize the
volatile Middle East. Hezbollah’s Terrorist Threat to the European Union
James Phillips Hezbollah (“Party of God”), the radical Lebanonbased
Shiite revolutionary movement, poses a clear terrorist threat to international security. Hezbollah terrorists have murdered Americans, Israelis, Lebanese, Europeans, and the citizens of many other nations. Originally founded in 1982, this group has evolved from a local menace into a global terrorist network strongly backed by radical regimes in Iran and Syria,
and funded by a web of charitable organizations, criminal activities, and front companies.
Hezbollah regards terrorism not only as a useful tool for advancing its revolutionary agenda but as a religious duty as part of a “global jihad.” It helped to introduce and popularize the horrific tactic of suicide bombings in Lebanon in the 1980s, developed a strong guerrilla force and a political apparatus in the 1990s, and became a major destabilizing influence in the Arab–Israeli conflict in the last decade.
Prior to September 11, 2001, Hezbollah murdered more Americans than any other terrorist group.
Despite al-Qaeda’s increased visibility since then, Hezbollah remains a bigger, better equipped, better organized, and potentially more dangerous terrorist organization, in part because it enjoys the unstinting support of the two chief state sponsors of terrorism in the world today—Iran and Syria. Hezbollah’s threat potential led former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to dub it “the A-Team of terrorism.”
Hezbollah is a cancer that has metastasized, expanding its operations from Lebanon, first to strike regional targets in the Middle East, then far beyond. It now is truly a global terrorist threat that draws financial and logistical support from the Lebanese Shiite diaspora in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, North America, and South America.
Hezbollah fundraising and equipment procurement cells have been detected and broken up in the United States and Canada. Europe is believed to contain many more of these cells.
Hezbollah has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks against Americans, including:
• The April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut Lebanon, which killed 63
people, including 17 Americans;
• The October 23, 1983, suicide truck bombing of the Marine barracks at Beirut Airport, which
killed 241 Marines deployed as part of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon;
• The September 20, 1984, bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in Lebanon; and
• The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 American servicemen stationed in
Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah also was involved in the kidnapping of several dozen Westerners, including 14 Americans, who were held as hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The American hostages eventually became pawns that Iran used as leverage in the secret negotiations that led to the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s.
Hezbollah has launched numerous attacks at farflung targets outside the Middle East. Hezbollah perpetrated the two deadliest terrorist attacks in the history of South America—the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 29 people; and the July 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 96 people. The trial of those implicated in the 1994 bombing revealed an extensive Hezbollah presence in Argentina and other countries in South America. Hezbollah also was involved in aborted attempts to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1994, and in a failed plot in Singapore.
Hezbollah’s Terrorist Threat in Europe Hezbollah poses a direct threat to EU citizens at
home and those traveling abroad, especially in the Middle East. Hezbollah established a presence
inside European countries in the 1980s amid the influx of Lebanese citizens seeking to escape Lebanon’s brutal civil war and the recurring clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanese refugee camps. Hezbollah took root among Lebanese Shiite immigrant communities throughout Europe. German intelligence officials estimate that roughly 900 Hezbollah members live in Germany alone. Hezbollah also has developed an extensive web of fundraising and logistical support cells spread throughout Europe.
France and Britain have been the principal European targets of Hezbollah terrorism, in part because both countries opposed Hezbollah’s agenda in Lebanon and were perceived to be enemies of Iran, Hezbollah’s chief patron. Hezbollah has been involved in many terrorist attacks against Europeans, including:
• The October 1983 bombing of the French contingent of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon (on the same day as the U.S. Marine barracks bombing), which killed 58
French soldiers;
• The December 1983 bombing of the French Embassy in Kuwait;
• The April 1985 bombing of a restaurant near a U.S. base in Madrid, Spain, which killed 18
Spanish citizens;
• A campaign of 13 bombings in France in 1986 that targeted shopping centers and railroad
facilities, killing 13 people and wounding more than 250; and
• A March 1989 attempt to assassinate British novelist Salman Rushdie, which failed when a
bomb exploded prematurely, killing a terrorist in London. Hezbollah attacks in Europe trailed off in the 1990s after Hezbollah’s Iranian sponsors accepted a truce in their bloody 1980–1988 war with Iraq and no longer needed a surrogate to punish states that Tehran perceived to be supporting Iraq. But this lull could quickly come to an end if the situation changes in Lebanon or Iran is embroiled in another conflict.
Significantly, the participation of European troops in Lebanese peacekeeping operations, which
became a lightning rod for Hezbollah terrorist attacks in the 1980s, could become an issue again
today, as Hezbollah attempts to revive its aggressive operations in southern Lebanon. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden have contributed troops to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Troops from EU member states may find themselves attacked by Hezbollah with weapons financed by Hezbollah’s supporters in
their home countries.
According to intelligence officials, Hezbollah operatives are deployed throughout Europe, including Belgium, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Radicalizing European Muslims Europe’s vacation from Hezbollah terrorist attacks could come to a swift end if Hezbollah succeeds in its attempts to convert European Muslims to its harsh ideology. Young Muslim militants in Berlin, asked in a television interview to explain their hatred of the United States and Jews, cited Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV as one of their main sources of
information. Ideas have consequences. In July 2006, four months after Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah, in an interview broadcast on al-Manar TV, called for Muslims to take a decisive stand
against the Danish cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed, two Lebanese students sought to
bomb two trains in Germany as a reprisal for the cartoons, but the bombs failed to detonate.
Clearly, Europeans are exposing themselves to increased risks of terrorism as long as they allow
Hezbollah’s political and propaganda apparatus to spew a witch’s brew of hatred, incitement, and calls for vengeance.
Hezbollah’s Role as a Proxy for Iran Hezbollah is a close ally, frequent surrogate, and terroristsubcontractor for Iran’s revolutionary Islamic regime. Iran played a crucial role in creating Hezbollah in 1982 as a vehicle for exporting its revolution, mobilizing Lebanese Shiites, and developing a terrorist surrogate for attacks on Iran’s enemies. Tehran provides the bulk of Hezbollah’s foreign support: arms, training, logistical support, and money. Iran provides
at least $100 million (and probably closer to $200 million) of annual support for Hezbollah and has lavishly stocked Hezbollah’s expensive and extensive arsenal of Katyusha rockets, sophisticated mines, small arms, ammunition, explosives, anti-ship missiles,
anti-aircraft missiles, and even unmanned aerial vehicles that Hezbollah can use for aerial surveillance or remotely piloted terrorist attacks. Iranian Revolutionary Guards have trained Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and in Iran.
Iran has used Hezbollah as a club to hit not only Israel and its Western enemies, but also many Arab countries. Iran’s revolutionary ideology has fed its hostility to other Muslim governments, which it seeks to overthrow and replace with radical allies. During the Iran–Iraq war, Tehran used Hezbollah to launch terrorist attacks against Iraqi targets and against Arab states that sided with Iraq. Hezbollah launched numerous terrorist attacks against Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, which extended strong financial support to Iraq’s war effort, and participated in several other terrorist operations in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Iranian officials conspired with the Saudi branch of Hezbollah to conduct the
1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
Today, Hezbollah continues to cooperate with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to destabilize Iraq, where both groups help train and equip the Mahdi Army, the radical anti-Western Shiite militia led by the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
By refusing to use its economic leverage over Iran to dissuade Tehran from continuing its troubling nuclear weapons program, the EU is making a military
clash between the United States and Iran much more likely. In that event, Hezbollah cells throughout Europe are likely to be activated to strike at American, and perhaps NATO, targets. Even if Hezbollah elects to restrict its focus to American embassies, businesses, and tourists, many Europeans are likely to perish in such attacks.
Hezbollah’s Ties with Other Terrorist Groups In addition to the direct threat Hezbollah poses
to Europeans, it also poses an indirect threat by virtue of its collaboration with other terrorist groups that have targeted Europeans. Many of these groups
already have been placed on the EU terrorism list.
Hezbollah has developed a cooperative relationship on an ad hoc basis with the al-Qaeda terrorist network and several radical Palestinian groups. In
June 2002, U.S. and European intelligence officials noted that Hezbollah was “increasingly teaming up with al-Qaeda on logistics and training for terrorist operations.” Both al-Qaeda and Hezbollah established training bases in Sudan after the 1989 coup that brought the radical National Islamic Front to power.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which also established a strong presence in Sudan to support the Sudanese regime, ran several training camps for Arab radical Islamic groups there and may have facilitated cooperative efforts between the two terrorist groups.
Another worrisome web of cooperation between Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Hamas support networks is flourishing in the tri-border region at the juncture of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. This lawless and corrupt region has provided lucrative opportunities for Hezbollah supporters to raise funds, launder money, obtain fraudulent documents, pass counterfeit
currency, and smuggle drugs, arms, and people.
Modern terrorist networks often are composed of loosely organized transnational webs of autonomous cells, which help them to defeat the efforts of various law enforcement, intelligence, and internal security agencies to dismantle them. This decentralized structure also helps to conceal the hand of state sponsors that seek to use terrorist groups for their own ends while minimizing the risk of retaliation from states targeted by the terrorists.
The amorphous, non-hierarchical nature of the networks, and their linkages with cooperative criminal networks, leads to a situation in which some nodes of the web function as part of more than one terrorist group. This cross-pollination of terrorist networks makes it difficult to determine where one terrorist group ends and another one begins. Therefore, giving Hezbollah a free pass to operate inside the European Union also aids other groups who are
plugged into the same web of criminal gangs, family enterprises, or clan networks.
In 2002, Germany closed down a charitablefundraising organization, the al-Aqsa Fund, whichreportedly was a Hamas front that also raised moneyfor Hezbollah. Hezbollah also has colluded with al-Qaeda affiliates in Asia. Abdul Nasser Nooh assistedboth Hezbollah and al-Qaeda activities, andMuhammad Amed al-Khalifa, a Hezbollah member,was involved in sending a shipment of explosives tothe Philippines through an al-Qaeda front company.According to U.S. intelligence officials, Hezbollahhas cooperated with the terrorist network formerlyled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killedin Iraq in 2006. This network officially became partof al-Qaeda in 2004. Despite Zarqawi’s militantlyanti-Shia views, the two groups have reportedlycoordinated terrorist efforts against Israel on an adhoc basis. Zarqawi’s network, composed of Sunniextremists from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinianterritories, Iraq and other countries, has astrong fundraising and support infrastructure inEurope that poses a significant threat to Europeansas well as citizens of a wide range of other countries.In the Middle East, Hezbollah has cooperatedwith Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah’sAl-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades to launch terroristattacks against Israelis. After the outbreak of thesecond Palestinian intifada in 2000, Hezbollah’snotorious terrorism coordinator, Imad Mugniyah,was selected by Iran to assist Palestinian terroristoperations against Israel. Mugniyah reportedlyplayed a role in facilitating the shipment of 50tons of Iranian arms and military supplies to Palestinianmilitants on board the freighter Karine A,which was intercepted by Israeli naval forces inthe Red Sea in January 2002 before its cargo couldbe delivered. Hezbollah has also provided Hamasand other Palestinian extremist groups with technicalexpertise for suicide bombing.Hezbollah’s DestabilizingInfluence in the Middle EastHezbollah threatens the security and stability ofthe Middle East, and European interests in the MiddleEast, on a number of fronts. In addition to itsmurderous campaign against Israel, Hezbollahseeks to violently impose its totalitarian agenda andsubvert democracy in Lebanon. Although someexperts believed that Hezbollah’s participation inthe 1992 Lebanese elections and subsequent inclupage5No. 1038 Delivered June 20, 2007sion in Lebanon’s parliament and coalition governmentswould moderate its behavior, its politicalinclusion brought only cosmetic changes.After Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from southernLebanon and the September 2000 outbreak offighting between Israelis and Palestinians, Hezbollahstepped up its support for Palestinian extremistgroups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad,the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and the PopularFront for the Liberation of Palestine. It also expandedits own operations in the West Bank and Gazaand provided funding for specific attacks launchedby other groups.In July 2006, Hezbollah forces crossed the internationallyrecognized border to kidnap Israeli soldiersinside Israel, igniting a military clash thatclaimed hundreds of lives and severely damaged theeconomies on both sides of the border. Hezbollah isrebuilding its depleted arsenal with financial supportfrom its European fundraising networks. Thisposes a threat to European soldiers in the U.N.peacekeeping force in Lebanon. To be consistent,the EU should ban such fundraising.Hezbollah uses Europe as a staging area andrecruiting ground for infiltrating terrorists into Israel.Hezbollah has dispatched operatives to Israelfrom Europe to gather intelligence and execute terroristattacks. Examples of Hezbollah operativeswho have traveled to Israel from Europe includeHussein Makdad, a Lebanese national who used aforged British passport to enter Israel from Switzerlandin 1996 and injured himself in a prematurebomb explosion in his Jerusalem hotel room; StefanSmirnak, a German convert to Islam who wastrained by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and was arrestedat Ben Gurion airport after flying to Israel in 1997;Fawzi Ayoub, a Canadian citizen of Lebanesedescent, who was arrested in 2000 after traveling toIsrael on a boat from Europe; and Gerard Shuman,a dual Lebanese–British citizen, who was arrested inIsrael in 2001.Additionally, long before al-Qaeda and the Talibanbegan to finance their operations using profitsfrom drug smuggling from Afghanistan, Hezbollahwas a major supplier of illicit drugs to Europe andother regions. The organization tapped into longstandingsmuggling networks operated by Shiiteclans in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.Hezbollah raises money from smuggling Lebaneseopium, hashish, and heroin. It also traffics inillicit drugs in the tri-border region of South America.Hezbollah cells also engage in other forms ofcriminal activity, such as credit card fraud and traffickingin “conflict diamonds” in Sierra Leone, Congo,and Liberia to finance their activities.The EU’s Ostrich-Like PolicyRegarding HezbollahThe United States long has designated Hezbollahas a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Australia, Canada,and the Netherlands have followed suit. TheUnited Kingdom has placed the “Hezbollah ExternalSecurity Organization” on its terrorist list. Butthe European Union has dragged its feet on takingserious action against Hezbollah.In May 2002, the EU added 11 organizations andseven individuals to its financial sanctions list for terrorism.This was the first time that the EU froze theassets of non-European terrorist groups. But it didnot sanction Hezbollah as an organization—onlyseveral individual leaders, such as Imad Mugniyah.By taking these half-measures, the EU mistakenlyhas embraced the fallacy that terrorist operationscan be separated from the other activities of a radicalorganization. Attempts to compartmentalize theperceived threat by accepting the fiction that a“political wing” is qualitatively different from a “militarywing” are self-defeating. This is a distinctionwithout a difference.Hezbollah’s raison d’être is to violently impose itstotalitarian ideology on Muslims and forge a radicalIslamic state determined to destroy Israel and driveout Western and other non-Islamic influences fromthe Muslim world. No genuine “political party”would finance suicide bombings and accumulate anarsenal of over 10,000 rockets to be indiscriminatelylaunched at civilians in a neighboring country.Agreeing to accept a false distinction betweenpolitical and terrorist wings is also dangerous. Itallows Hezbollah to continue raising money for violentpurposes. Money is fungible. Funds raised inEurope, ostensibly to finance charitable and politicalcauses, can free up money to finance terroristattacks or can be diverted to criminal activities. Thepage 6No. 1038 Delivered June 20, 2007recent violent convulsion in Gaza and last summer’swar in Lebanon underscore the great dangers inherentin treating radical Islamic movements as normalpolitical parties.Hezbollah leaders themselves see little distinctionbetween political and terrorist activity (which theyconsider to be “military” or “resistance” actions).Mohammed Raad, one of Hezbollah’s representativesin the Lebanese parliament, proclaimed in 2001,“Hezbollah is a military resistance party, and it is ourtask to fight the occupation of our land…There is noseparation between politics and resistance.” In 2002,Mohammed Fannish, a Hezbollah political leaderand former Lebanese Minister of Energy, declared: “Ican state that there is no separating between Hezbollahmilitary and political aims.”The EU also excluded the fundraising network ofHamas from the terrorism list in 2002. But inAugust 2003, the EU reversed itself and classified allof Hamas as a terrorist organization. It is high timeto do the same with Hezbollah.Some Europeans may hope that by passivelyaccepting Hezbollah’s fundraising activities, the EUcan escape its terrorism. But this ostrich-like policyignores the fact that fundraising cells easily cantransform themselves into operational terrorist cellsif called on to do so. Hezbollah cells are like stemcells that can morph into other forms and take onnew duties. The Federal Bureau of Investigation haswarned that Hezbollah support cells inside theUnited States could also undertake terrorist attacks.The same is true in Europe.Individual EU member states, such as Franceand Germany, have previously taken legal actionagainst Hezbollah. Germany has deported Hezbollahoperatives and France banned Hezbollah’s al-Manar television network in 2004. But such actionswere undertaken in an ad hoc manner on a countryby-country basis, not in a systematic manner by theEU as a whole. Given that protecting citizens is thehighest duty of the state, such half-hearted piecemealpolicies are irresponsible.Putting Hezbollah on the EU terrorism list wouldrequire the consent of all 27 EU member states.Such action would oblige each member to prohibitthe channeling of money from European entitiesand individuals to Hezbollah, and to seize Hezbollahassets in the EU. On March 10, 2005, the EUParliament voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolutionthat affirmed Hezbollah’s involvement in terroristactivities and ordered the EU Council to “take allnecessary steps to curtail” Hezbollah.But France, Spain, and Belgium have blockedaction in recent years. French Foreign MinisterMichel Barnier in February 2005 justified Frenchopposition to declaring Hezbollah to be a terroristgroup by saying: “Hezbollah has a parliamentaryand political dimension in Lebanon. They havemembers of parliament who are participating inparliamentary life. As you know, political life inLebanon is difficult and fragile.” But one major reasonthat life is so “difficult and fragile” in Lebanonis that Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, seeksto intimidate democratic forces in Lebanonthrough the use of terrorism. Taking a stand againstHezbollah not only would undermine its ability tofinance terrorism against its Lebanese opponents,but would also make life much less difficult in Lebanonin the long run.Classifying Hezbollah as a terrorist organizationwould significantly constrain its ability to operate inEurope and severely erode its ability to raise fundsthere and use European banks to transfer fundsaround the globe. All EU member states would berequired to freeze Hezbollah assets and prohibitHezbollah-related financial transactions. Hezbollahleader Hassan Nasrallah recognized the damage thatthis would do to his organization in a March 2005interview aired on Hezbollah’s al-Manar televisionnetwork: “The sources of [our] funding will dry upand the sources of moral, political, and materialsupport will be destroyed.”But France in particular has blocked action on takingthe logical next step with Hezbollah. The recentelection of Nicolas Sarkozy as France’s new presidentoffers hope for a major shift in the French position.Sarkozy hopefully will replace Jacques Chirac’s “SeeNo Evil” wishful thinking with a principled standagainst permitting a lethal killing machine to infectalienated European Muslims with its violent ideology,milk them of money to finance mass murder, andbrainwash them to become suicide bombers against awide array of targets.page 7No. 1038 Delivered June 20, 2007What EU Leaders Should DoEuropean Union leaders must be persuadedto take concerted and systematic action againstHezbollah. First and foremost, they must understandthat in the long run, this is the best way toprotect their own people, the highest duty of government.Wishful thinking about the possibility ofinducing Hezbollah to stray from the fundamentaltenets of its own ideology will compromise thesecurity of EU citizens. Turning a blind eye toHezbollah’s activities will only allow it to metastasizeinto a more deadly threat. Cracking down onHezbollah activities would not only reduce thepotential terrorist threat, but would reduce thethreat of its ancillary activities, such as drug smuggling,criminal enterprises, and efforts to radicalizeEuropean Muslim communities.Second, EU leaders can be criticized for thestrained logic behind their current position. Itmakes little sense to designate individual Hezbollahleaders as terrorists, but continue to permit theorganization to raise money for their deadly work. Itis a mistake to exempt Hezbollah’s “political wing”from responsibility for the crimes perpetrated bythe “military wing” that executes its orders. Runninga hospital or an orphanage does not absolve anorganization for the murder of innocents. The EUmust be proactive and uproot Hezbollah’s supportinfrastructure in Europe in order to curtail the activitiesof its terrorist thugs around the world.Third, EU leaders should be asked to join themultilateral efforts of their democratic allies to protectall of their citizens from the attacks of totalitarianIslamic extremists. There is an ideological dimensionto this conflict, as well as a terrorist dimension. Itwould be irresponsible for the EU to stay neutral inthis global ideological struggle, given the presence ofa growing Muslim population inside Europe thatcould fall prey to radical Islamic ideologies.Banning Hezbollah also would be a step thatwould help stabilize the volatile Middle East andsupport Arab–Israeli peace efforts. Even the PalestinianAuthority requested that the EU ban Hezbollahin 2005, complaining that Hezbollah wasrecruiting Palestinian suicide bombers to sabotagethe tenuous truce with Israel.Putting Hezbollah on the EU terrorism list alsowould help stabilize Lebanon. U.N. Security CouncilResolution 1559, jointly sponsored by France and theUnited States, calls for the disarming of all militias inLebanon. Yet EU toleration of Hezbollah fundraisingoperations inside its own borders enables efforts tofinance the purchase of arms and ammunition for thebiggest and most dangerous militia in Lebanon. AddingHezbollah to the EU terrorism list would be animportant step toward disarming its militia andrestoring the rule of law in Lebanon.Banning Hezbollah also would contribute to thecontainment of Iran’s rising power. Tehran has used itsLebanese surrogate to advance its own radical foreignpolicy agenda in the past and is sure to do so again.The U.S. Congress has played a role in appealingfor greater cooperation from the EU in curtailingHezbollah’s activities. The House of Representatives,in March 2005, passed H. Res. 101, whichurged the EU to add Hezbollah to its terrorist list.The Senate followed suit the next month. Congressshould continue to press the EU to do the rightthing regarding Hezbollah by passing further resolutionsand holding hearings such as this one toeducate EU leaders and their constituencies aboutthe potential challenges posed by Hezbollah.The EU can no longer afford to ignore Hezbollah’sfestering threat or hope to deflect its attacks ontoother countries. The longer the EU balks at effectiveaction, the stronger the potential threat grows, fundedby the free flow of donations, diverted charitablefunds, and criminal booty out of the EU and the paymentsfor drugs smuggled into the EU.As Winston Churchill observed, “An appeaser isone who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat himlast.” The Hezbollah crocodile has eaten half of Lebanonand has laid dangerous eggs around the world.The EU must take proactive action, not wait forthese eggs to hatch.—James Phillips is Research Fellow for Middle EasternAffairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center forForeign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn andShelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies,at The Heritage Foundation. These remarks were deliveredJune 20, 2007, as testimony before the U.S. HouseCommittee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe.
