Clear Priorities

"This is a clear priority that was set out by the minister. We went out to try and achieve that objective. We've been doing a wide range of things. I can say that we worked with both sides fairly significantly."
"We conveyed our approach but respected their understanding and their national interests, which saw them divide between the political and the military.
"The important part was sending the political signal that the activities that Hezbollah was undertaking around the world were unacceptable, that it was terrorism and that it was a threat to all of our interests and our security."
Unnamed Canadian government source

Obviously, a matter that the Government of Canada takes seriously, of a piece with its position in identifying the Islamic Republic of Iran as a terrorist-supporting-and-inciting theocratic tyranny that imposes stringent and deadly impediments on its own peoples' human rights. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, well recognized as a proxy militia reliant upon and to Iran, with deep ties to the Iranian Republican Guard is simply an extension of Iran's terrorist reach.

Canada black-listed Hezbollah back in 2002, recognizing its purpose and its virulent pathology of hatred and its jihadist-inspired murderous assaults on American, Western and Israeli targets. For Canada, there was no separation recognized between the 'political' and the 'military' wings of the terror group. Answerable to one leader, both purported 'sides' had an integrated purpose; the political end aided by the military one.

The opportunity for Canada, through diplomatic overtures from the Department of Foreign Affairs aimed at European Union counterparts, arose when Hezbollah targeted Israeli tourists traveling to Bulgaria's Black Sea resort area for recreational vacation purposes, only to be involved in a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis and the Bulgarian bus driver. Bulgarian authorities pinpointed the source of the atrocity, and as a member of the EU it should have followed that Hezbollah would be black-listed by them.

The European Union whose 28 member-countries are well-infiltrated by jihadists had their internal concerns of inciting a backlash against themselves. Apart from which Hezbollah operatives within the EU engaged in fund-raising to further their activities in the Middle East and beyond. Disrupting that enterprise might provoke a backlash. The EU also cited concerns over possibly destabilizing Lebanon in whose government the 'political' wing of Hezbollah is invested.

Hezbollah handily took the matter out of the imagination of the EU worst-scenario-in-Lebanon bugbear, and took it upon themselves to begin the re-destabilization of already-historically-fractious Lebanon by throwing its lot in with Syria's (Shia) Alawite President Bashar al Assad, and joining him enthusiastically in battling the Sunni-led insurgents led by the Syrian Free Army and supported by Sunni Islamists, inclusive of al-Qaeda-linked operatives from Libya, Mali, Pakistan and Iraq.

Bilateral talks with representatives of European nations that took positions for and against listing Hezbollah took place led by Canadian envoys, persuading them that the right course of action was obvious; naming and isolating Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. Canadian law enforcement and security officials did their part in sharing relevant data with their European counterparts relating to the international threat posed by Hezbollah.

The mincing artifice of recognizing and separating 'wings' of the terrorist group identifies the European Union's half-hearted agreement to recognize realities. Perhaps without the concerted efforts of a determined Canadian government it would not even have occurred at the level that it did. Timely on one hand, pathetic in its half-measure on the other.

"Canadian diplomats were not passive bystanders in this debate, and I understand they had conversations and meetings with their European counterparts, explaining why Canada perceived this to be an important issue", said Matt Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Canada is aware within its security establishment that Hezbollah is ensconced surreptitiously within the country as a fundraising and procurement base. Within the immigrant Syrian community Hezbollah has its sympathizers. A Lebanese-Canadian Hezbollah operative has been implicated by Bulgaria as being one of two who fled to safety after the attack in Bulgaria. And it is known that a similar attack had been planned but circumvented in Cyprus.

"We've been seeing them acting as proxies for Iran in various parts of the world. They have continued to demonstrate that their ambition and their threat is global, and that's why we need global responses to address the threat that they pose", explained the unidentified Canadian official.