The populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) has introduced proposed legislation to ban the radical Islamist terror group Hezbollah following the Al-Quds day march that took place at the weekend.
The announcement was made by AfD MP Beatrix von Storch at a press conference in the German Bundestag on Tuesday. Ms von Storch said: “Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. The Berlin government claims you must distinguish between a legitimate, political wing of Hezbollah and a terrorist wing. This does not make sense to us, or the voters.”
AfD faction secretary Bernd Baumann, who also participated in the press conference, added: “Hezbollah abuses German NGO law, finances terrorism by means of illegal drug and arms deals, and fights for the destruction of Jews and Israel, which you could witness last Saturday at the Al-Quds march in Berlin and nationwide, where they even chant ‘Gas the Zionists’ the streets of Germany.”
According to a report from the Jerusalem Post last year, Hezbollah has around 950 activists raising money for them in Germany with the Bremen-based Al-Mustafa-Community Center using a Bremen bank to allegedly help transfer cash to the terror group in Lebanon.
“Hezbollah’s goal is the destruction of Israel and the Jews, and we should not be offering a safe haven for them to hide in Germany and finance their armed struggle against Israel and Lebanon from our territory,” von Storch said.
In December last year, AfD MP Petr Bystron noted that anti-Israel activists were not only operating in Germany but were directly receiving funding from Germany and the European Union.
“The AfD will continue to expose German and EU funding for anti-Israel NGOs, and work closely with our allies in Israel to do this,” Bystron said, and added: “While many media portray us as racist or even fascist, we strongly support Israel and the Jewish community in Germany – much as Israel is demonised in many media in the West.”