Israeli military dangerous terrorist organization: Analyst

Press TV has talked with Jennifer Loewenstein, with the University of Madison from Wisconsin, to discuss the recent decision by the European Union to put the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah on its blacklist.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We are seeing Israel saying that there is no difference between the political and the military wing of Hezbollah and that Hezbollah in itself should be regarded as a terrorist organization. Tzipi Livni for one has made statements similar to that.

But why do you think that we are seeing the European Union now saying that we are just sanctioning the military wing? Does that mean that they believe in cooperating with the political wing or they do approve of Hezbollah as a political party that is very active in Lebanon now?

Loewenstein: I think it is a tentative step. I also think that it is a very timely step. I think that because of the EU’s recent decision to ban funding and aid to any project in the occupied territories. This is Israel’s tit for tat.

They have done something that we are very angry at and now we are going to push them to do something so that it is balanced out. That is often the scenario.

As far as the whole idea of Resistance goes, I agree that everyone who is part of Hezbollah is part of the Resistance, and I think that that is very important.

Clearly there are people who fight as soldiers and there are people who support the resistance, but I think that if there were a need for every member and supporter of Hezbollah to support Hezbollah and its goals, they would all be there.

I do not understand your guest’s definition of a terrorist organization. If Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, the IDF, the military wing of Israel, is certainly a much worse and much more dangerous terrorist organization as is the United States military.

I realize that your guest will probably differentiate between state and non-state actors. I do not see that division as clearly.

Press TV: Ms. Loewenstein, our guest there in Washington is calling Hezbollah a terrorist group or a terrorist organization but we are now discussing this idea: Is Hezbollah the terrorist organization here? A lot of people are saying it is Israel which is the terrorist side here, it is not Hezbollah. The reasons we are getting from the EU is the attack in Bulgaria and we are hearing that the evidence there has not yet been proven to involve Hezbollah. Hezbollah itself has rejected it. What do you think is now making Hezbollah a terrorist organization that should be sanctioned?

Loewenstein: Well, I think that it is political expediency as I said before. I think that Israel has had a strike against it by the EU’s recent vote and… Netanyahu’s pressuring EU members to vote that the military wing of Hezbollah be considered terrorist is primarily political.

I was interested in your guest’s response about terrorism in general. He does not seem to think that any non-Islamic groups are terrorist. I found that a little bit curious. I also wonder how he can differentiate between the actions of Hezbollah, the actions of the IDF, which has a pretty poor record in terms of killing civilians and that is by far the closest definition to terrorism that we have, using politics to terrorize civilians. Yes that is the definition that we get in our own US military codebooks.

There are terrorist groups all over the world. There are terrorist groups within the United States military who carryout drone operations assassinating members, citizens of our own country and there is not much of an outcry here that these groups are terrorist with no sanctions from the people of a democratic nation to carry out these kinds of killings.

So I really think that the whole debate is misplaced. We have to decide what is and is not proper within the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to call terrorism, terrorism and self-defense, self-defense.

[In response to Richard Hellman]: That is one of the biggest pieces of propaganda and one of the worst lies I have ever heard on this radio station.

You have not read any of the documentation of Cast Lead. More than a thousand civilians were killed in Cast Lead. The IDF went into the Gaza Strip in a bold act of aggression, breaking international law and killing civilians…

Yes absolutely, I have been there more than ten times. I was a witness. I was in Gaza. I was an eye witness to a number of other slaughters in Gaza including Operation Autumn Clouds, the killing of Salah Shehade and the siege of Jenine and the West Bank. I was an eyewitness.

It is not propaganda when you watch the IDF soldiers shoot children. It is not propaganda when I see it with my own eyes. It is not propaganda when I hear an American-made F16 fly over one of the most crowded buildings in one of the most crowded neighborhoods of Gaza, drop a 2,000-pounds bomb on an apartment building after midnight in the summer of 2002 killing 15 civilians and destroying every home within a 10-mile radius, all in order to kill a man who had just agreed to sign a truce with Israel, between Israel and Hamas.

I was there and Hamas had just agreed to make a truce, why was Salah Shehade murdered the night after he made a truce with the Israelis? Tell me why there are children in the morgues of Kamal Adwan and Shifa Hospital who are targets of the Israeli military after the tanks roll in and shoot people who go out of their houses to get water and food.

You are asking me if I was an eyewitness and I am telling you yes, on more than six occasions, on more than six occasions; I lived in Gaza, I lived in the Gaza Strip. Did I not see what I am telling you, I saw… did you not see what I am telling you, I saw. I am very concerned about the 100,000 people who have died in Syria and that is why I refuse to support the giving of arms to militias who have killed more civilians than the government of Bashar al-Assad.