Hezbollah cells await Iran’s orders

Melanie Phillips

02 August 2006

Hezbollah sleeper cells in Western Europe are awaiting instructions from Tehran, says Melanie Phillips. Sunni and Shia are uniting in their hatred of the West, and Britain may soon be another front in a war that extends far beyond Lebanon

Although it goes to some lengths to pretend that it is hostile only to Israel but not to Jews, its real agenda is all too plain. Thus it claims wholly falsely, in a libel straight out of the manuals of Jew-hatred, that ‘Israel’s state ideology is based on a racial concept of the superiority of the Jews over all other humans. This leads to Israeli army soldiers shooting freely at children, women or ambulance drivers.’ Isn’t such incitement to racial hatred a crime?

When Shadjareh was challenged about the fact that he was once photographed wrapped in the Hezbollah flag, he said, ‘We are not supporting or opposing Hezbollah or anybody else. The wearing of the Hezbollah flag is neither uncommon nor controversial among activists.’ As the placards at the Trafalgar Square rally said, we are all Hezbollah now.

Many believe that Britain’s support for Israel and America is turning the UK into a target for terrorist attacks. There is no doubt that the passions inflamed by Israel’s strikes in Lebanon — and particularly the way these are being reported — raises the temperature to boiling point and provides the Islamists with a further pretext for terror. As the Prime Minister bluntly put it, ‘When people stand up and fight, people will come after you.’

But the belief that there would be no threat to Britain or America without these recent events is demonstrably false. Way back in 1994 Shadjareh spoke on a platform in Trafalgar Square draped with a banner which read, ‘Death To The Enemies Of Islam’.

Until 11 September 2001, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organisation. It is known or suspected to have been involved in the suicide truck bombings of the US embassy and US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983, the bombing of the US embassy annexe in Beirut in 1984 and the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome. And it is said by various intelligence agencies to have kidnapped over 30 Westerners between 1982 and 1992.