There’s a very fluffy piece on Hezbollah at the BBC, written by Natalia Antelava. If you fast forward past the gooey knickers stuff:
Tall, immaculately dressed and articulate, the man did not fit my image of a fighter.
“We are not some hardliners who hide in the mountains,” he smiled, clearly amused by my observation.
there are some interesting observations on the pointlessness of the United Kingdom FCO’s line that a distinction can be made between the “political” and the “military” wing of Hezbollah.
You’ll remember that Bill Rammell, the FCO Minister, has been reaching out to Hezbollah and was reportedly considering revoking the ban on the “political wing”, on the basis of that false logic. The United States do not agree, and neither do Hezbollah.
In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any member of Hezbollah who draws that distinction:
But more recently, the United Kingdom government decided to distinguish between the two faces of Hezbollah – by talking to its politicians while keeping the military wing on the terrorist list.
But Mahmoud, the fighter, says the UK is fooling itself by making this distinction.
“We have two arms, but we belong to one body. There is no such things as the military wing or the political wing of Hezbollah – we are all part of one resistance,” he said.
“Hezbollah will become a purely political party only when Israel ceases to exist,” he said.
The FCO know this full well. Don’t expect them to stop pushing the line that such a distinction exists, though.
