Monday, November 5th 2012

Why Hezbollah is Europe's problem too

The global footprint of Iran's most dangerous ally

Lecture with

Matthew Levitt (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

Chair: Simone Dinah Hartmann (STOP THE BOMB)

Monday, November 5th 2012, 07:00 PM

Presseclub Concordia, Bankgasse 8, 1010 Vienna

The lecture will be held in English.

Hezbollah, whose yellow banners can be seen regularly in Vienna waving over Islamist rallies which are orchestrated by the Iranian regime, like the annual Al Quds march, is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks around the world. Although Hezbollah's cadres are active within all important European countries, its name is not even mentioned in the annual report of Austria's intelligence service. In July 2012, the EU rejected to add the Lebanese jihadists to the list of terrorist organizations. Yet, since then voices were being raised to revise the decision.

Hezbollah, which was established, and up to the present day is being armed and financed by the Iranian regime, is a terrorist organization that is active worldwide. It advocates a clearly anti-Semitic ideology, aiming at the extermination of Israel, and propagates the sociopolitical ideas of Islamism: The systematic discrimination of woman, persecution of homosexuals, violence against dissenters and the establishment of a Shiite theocracy. At the moment, Hezbollah actively partakes in the suppression of the revolt against its longstanding ally, Assad's Baathist dictatorship in Syria.

The lecture will outline how European countries serve Hezbollah as an area of retreat and operation, and discuss the alarming amount of donations that are being collected by Hezbollah in this area. It will also be pointed out how Vienna, too, has been utilized for the preparation of terrorist attacks and why a ban of the Lebanese Islamists would be a decisive blow to the Iranian regime.

Dr. Matthew Levitt is senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and heads the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Departments of the Treasury. His teaching activities include appointments at the John Hopkins University and his book "Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God" will be published by Georgetown University Press in 2013.