“The EU is weighing whether to add Hezbollah to its list of designated terror organisations. Such a move is long overdue both in the European Union and in Britain. In Europe the organisation is not named at all on its terrorist list, whilst on Britain’s own list of foreign terrorist groups, a false distinction is made between Hezbollah’s military wing, and the organisation as a whole.

The Terrorism Act 2000 came into force in the UK in February 2001, making possible the proscription of foreign terror groups. When the list was drawn up under then-Home Secretary Jack Straw, only the military arms of Hamas and Hezbollah were named, as opposed to the organisations in full.

Correspondence leaked to journalist Martin Bright between Home Office and Foreign Office officials from 2005, indicated that this was a policy decision made by ministers, and that the intelligence services did not support making a distinction between political and military wings of either organisation. Both Hamas and Hezbollah had appeared in their entirety on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations since the mid-1990s. It is not clear therefore, why a political decision was made in Britain to draw a distinction between political and military wings.”

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