Itongadol.- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that the "biased" European Union should have put the IDF on its terror blacklist rather than the military wing of Hezbollah.
“If we want to speak logically, why wouldn’t the Europeans blacklist Israel’s military wing, i.e., its army?” Now Lebanon quoted him as saying.
The Lebanese Daily Star quoted Nasrallah as saying that the terror designation had been expected and was a decision taken under Israeli pressure.
Nasrallah stated that the move served only the interests of Israel and not Europe.
He said the European Union had given Israel justification to attack Lebanon and would bear responsibility for any Israeli military action.
"These countries must know … that they have given legal cover to Israel for any aggression against Lebanon. Why? Because Israel can then say \’We are waging war on terrorism\’," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
"These countries have made themselves a full partner in responsibility for any Israeli aggression against Lebanon," he said in the speech delivered by video link from an undisclosed location.
He said the EU move would have no practical effect on Hezbollah itself, laughing off the impact of any travel ban and dismissing any attempt to freeze Hezbollah funds.
Hezbollah, he said, had no money in banks – "neither as a party nor as individuals" – and no trade interests, investments or companies in Lebanon or abroad that could be affected by such measures.
"The aim of this decision is to subdue us, force us to retreat … to fear. But I say to you that through this decision you will achieve only failure and disappointment," he said.
"Anyone who thinks that a resistance group that confronted the strongest army in the region for 33 days … would submit to a stupid decision is delusional and ignorant."
A Hezbollah official will meet with the EU representative in Lebanon, according to a press statement by Hezbollah on Wednesday, as reported by the Daily Star. Hezbollah official Ammar Moussawi plans to meet Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst on Thursday in Hezbollah’s stronghold of south Beirut.
Meanwhile, an official in Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry denounced the EU’s decision to put the armed wing of Hezbollah on its list of terror organizations, saying on Tuesday that the decision serves “Israeli plots in the region.”