Exclusive - Hezbollah Ban in Germany: Culmination of Years of Investigation in Illicit Activity

Special police investigate the Hezbollah-linked Imam Mahdi center in Muenster, western Germany, April 30, 2020. (AP)
Special police investigate the Hezbollah-linked Imam Mahdi center in Muenster, western Germany, April 30, 2020. (AP)
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Exclusive - Hezbollah Ban in Germany: Culmination of Years of Investigation in Illicit Activity

Special police investigate the Hezbollah-linked Imam Mahdi center in Muenster, western Germany, April 30, 2020. (AP)
Special police investigate the Hezbollah-linked Imam Mahdi center in Muenster, western Germany, April 30, 2020. (AP)

At 6 am on April 30, some 50 members of the German police raided the Irshad center in Berlin. They had a search and investigation warrant to find evidence that implicates the association in funding and promoting the Lebanese Hezbollah party.

Just a day earlier, the German government banned Hezbollah in the country, designating it as a terrorist organization, ending the distinction between its military and political wings.

At 6:30 pm that same day, the center posted a nearly 40-minute lecture by Shafiq al-Jaradi, a Lebanese cleric and graduate of Iran’s Qom Seminary. Jaradi is a professed Hezbollah supporter, who shocked St. Joseph University students when he made the admission during a lecture in Beirut years ago. Jaradi never hid his support. On March 25, he hailed the Iran-backed Hezbollah, tweeting that the party’s managing of civilian crises can be compared to that of developed countries.

Despite this open support, the Irshad center denies having ties with a “terrorist organization.” At any rate, the German government and association may have a different definition of terrorism. Jaradi, during a lecture before Holy Spirit University of Kaslik students said that terrorism is an “often misused word.”

A day after the raid, the center posted a statement on its Facebook page, vowing to pursue legal means to confront the “unjust political media campaign” against it. It did not refer to Hezbollah in its statement or deny supporting it.

Irshad center

The Irshad was one of four religious centers raided by German police in Berlin. Raids also took place against other centers in four cities over their suspected affiliation with Hezbollah. No one was arrested, but that does not mean that warrants are not coming. “This is only the beginning,” said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

Despite the militia’s blacklisting in Germany, the move is unlikely to impact the party in Lebanon or Berlin’s policy towards Beirut, German diplomats told Asharq Al-Awsat. Germany still considers Hezbollah a “main element of Lebanese society” and a participant in parliament and successive governments. The blacklisting of the party in Germany does not change this.

MP Marian Wendt, of the ruling Christian Democratic Union of Germany, has been calling for Hezbollah’s blacklisting for years. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said Berlin was “realistically” assessing the political situation.

“We know that Hezbollah is important in Lebanon and that it is a partner in rule. We know we have to cooperate with it if we want to support the Lebanese people. This does not contradict with our stance that it is a terrorist party,” he explained. He cited how Germany communicates with the Taliban movement, which Berlin had blacklisted, because it cannot dismiss while providing aid to Afghanistan.

Terror financing

Wendt said his party has for years been trying to blacklist Hezbollah in order to dry up one of its significant sources of finances. The German authorities are well aware of the party’s activities on its soil. “We know that Hezbollah is using Germany as a front to collect donations to fund terrorism in Lebanon. We know of their organized crime and money-laundering operations,” he revealed.

Wendt stressed that along with the CDU, he was determined to “weaken Hezbollah and Iran’s influence in the region.”

Germany is relatively close to Iran and had played the role of mediator between Hezbollah and Israel in past prisoner swaps. The decision to ban the party in Germany may therefore, have a negative impact on Berlin’s role in such diplomatic channels.

Wendt dismissed the concerns. He also dismissed Lebanon’s summoning of the German ambassador in wake of the ban. Lebanon is an “important” partner for Germany, said the MP, ruling out the possibility that the ban may affect these relations. The ban, he stressed, throws the ball in Lebanon’s court where the people are urged to reject having a “terrorist party” play an influential role in government.

Ties with Iran

On the ban’s impact on relations with Tehran, the German Foreign Ministry said Iran did not submit any formal complaint over the move despite its threat that Berlin “will pay the price.” Laughing, Wendt wondered: “What will Iran do? Impose sanctions on German companies? Iran is in no position to object or tell us what we should and shouldn’t do.”

“What it should do is return to the negotiations table and quit harassing vessels in the Hormuz Strait and sparking conflicts in the region,” he suggested.

Weeks ago, European countries, led by Germany, activated the Instex mechanism in order to deliver medical aid to Tehran as it combats the coronavirus outbreak. This was the first time the mechanism has ever been used. Several German companies had kicked off projects in Tehran after the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. These same companies withdrew from Iran when Washington quit the deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Berlin, as it seems, appears unconcerned about “bothering” Iran, which is clinging on to any western support it can get as it confronts an American administration that is bent on bringing it to its knees.

Double standards

At any rate, Germany appears to be treating Iran with the same “double standards” it adopts with the Taliban and Hezbollah. For instance, on the one hand it maintains good political ties with the Tehran regime, while on the other, it arrests and puts on trial its spies in Germany. In 2018, it arrested a diplomat from the Iranian embassy in Austria while he was visiting Germany. It accused him of plotting to assassinate Iranian opposition figures in Europe.

Political analyst Najeh al-Obeidy told Asharq Al-Awsat that Germany has been actively preventing Iran from expanding its influence on its territories, while at the same time, maintaining relations with Tehran.

Previous bans

Germany has been closing in on Hezbollah’s activities for years. It has taken small steps in the past, such as banning the party’s al-Manar television in 2009. In 2014, it banned an orphans charity that was actually a front for the Martyrs Organization, which is run by Hezbollah. Nearly all the funds collected by the charity had been transferred to the Organization, which is an integral part of Hezbollah. “The charity operated for nearly 17 years in Germany, gathering money for orphans, but they were actually being sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon that was using them to buy weapons and rockets to use against the Lebanese and Syrian people,” said then German chief of domestic intelligence Hans Georg Maassen.

Obeidy said German’s slow or even lax approach in confronting Hezbollah’s activities can be attributed to its concern over the repercussions of its actions. He said some experts believe the crackdown will force some organizations to go underground, which will impact surveillance activities against them.

Years of criminal activity

Hezbollah does not have a clear organizational structure in Germany. Terrorism expert Jassem Mohammed said that Hezbollah employs various fronts behind which it operates. It is these fronts that are usually targeted in raids.

Militias in Germany are not only active in collecting donations and spreading propaganda, but they operate drugs and money-laundering networks through several mediators, who mainly work in the car trade.

Germany has been aware of these activities for at least 15 years. Back in 2008, it arrested four Lebanese men at Frankfurt airport after it discovered 9 million euros in their luggage and which they were trying to transfer to Beirut. They were allegedly going to be delivered to a figure who is close to Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. The bust was two years in the making after police monitored the activity of two Lebanese living in Germany and who were convicted of forming a ring to launder money generated from the cocaine trade. The suspects worked in the auto industry and had received military training by Hezbollah, but the charges were not proven in court.

Their arrest led to the launch of the so-called Cedar Operation in 2016 that led to the discovery of a drug smuggling and money-laundering network that operated in six European countries. All 14 members of the ring were either Lebanese or of Lebanese origins. Four operated in Germany.

The “cedar gang” transferred drug money generated in Latin America to Europe and Africa by buying expensive cars, watches and jewelry to later send to Lebanon, where they are sold on the black market at their original value. Investigators at the time tried to prove that the money was being funneled to Hezbollah in Lebanon or that the operations were being ordered by the party. The probe led nowhere. It is suspected that the four gang members generated some 20 million euros between 2011 and 2015.



Gazans Struggle to Imagine Post-war Recovery

Palestinians search for survivors amid the rubble of a building, which collapsed after Israeli bombardment on a building adjacent to it, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on September 23, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians search for survivors amid the rubble of a building, which collapsed after Israeli bombardment on a building adjacent to it, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on September 23, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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Gazans Struggle to Imagine Post-war Recovery

Palestinians search for survivors amid the rubble of a building, which collapsed after Israeli bombardment on a building adjacent to it, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on September 23, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Palestinians search for survivors amid the rubble of a building, which collapsed after Israeli bombardment on a building adjacent to it, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on September 23, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

The sheer scale of destruction from the deadliest war in Gaza's history has made the road to recovery difficult to imagine, especially for people who had already lost their homes during previous conflicts.

After an Israeli strike levelled his family home in Gaza City in 2014, 37-year-old Mohammed Abu Sharia made good on his pledge to return to the same plot within less than a year.

The process was not perfect: the grant they received paid for only two floors instead of the original four.

But they happily called it home until it came under aerial assault again last October, following Hamas's attack on southern Israel.

This time, the family could not flee in time and five people were killed, four of them children.

The rest remain displaced nearly a year later, scattered across Gaza and in neighboring Egypt.

"A person puts all his life's hard work into building a house, and suddenly it becomes a mirage," Abu Sharia told AFP.

"If the war stops, we will build again in the same place because we have nothing else."

With bombs still raining down on Gaza, many of the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million people will face the same challenge as Abu Sharia: how to summon the resources and energy necessary for another round of rebuilding.

"The pessimism is coming from bad experiences with reconstruction in the past, and the different scale of this current destruction," said Ghassan Khatib, a former planning minister.

That has not stopped people from trying to plan ahead.

Some focus on the immediate challenges of removing rubble and getting their children back in school after nearly a year of suspended classes.

Others dream of loftier projects: building a port, a Palestinian film industry, or even recruiting a globally competitive football team.

But with no ceasefire in sight, analysts say most long-term planning is premature.

"It's sort of like putting icing on a cake that's not yet fully baked," said Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

It could take 80 years to rebuild some 79,000 destroyed homes, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing said in May.

A UN report in July said workers could need 15 years just to clear the rubble.

The slow responses to past Gaza wars in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021 give little reason for confidence that rebounding from this one will be any smoother, said Omar Shaban, founder of the Gaza-based think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza, imposed after Hamas took control of the territory in 2007, remains firmly in place, sharply restricting access to building materials.

"People are fed up," Shaban said.

"They lost their faith even before the war."

Despite the hopelessness, Shaban is among those putting forward more imaginative strategies for Gaza's postwar future.

Earlier this year he published an article suggesting initial reconstruction work could focus on 10 neighborhoods -– one inside and one outside refugee camps in each of Gaza's five governorates.

The idea would be to ensure the benefits of reconstruction are seen across the besieged territory, he told AFP.

"I want to create hope. People need to realize that their suffering is going to end" even if not right away, he said.

"Otherwise they will become radical."

Hope is also a major theme of Palestine Emerging, an initiative that has suggested building a port on an artificial island made of war debris, a technical university for reconstruction, and a Gaza-West Bank transportation corridor.

Other proposals have included launching a tourism campaign, building a Palestinian film industry, and recruiting a football squad.

"Maybe when you look on some of these, you would think they are, you know, dreams or something," Palestine Emerging executive director Shireen Shelleh said from her office in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"However, I believe if you don't dream then you cannot achieve anything. So even if some people might find it ambitious or whatever, in my opinion that's a good thing."

Khatib, the former planning minister, said it was not the time for such proposals.

"I think people should be more realistic," he said.

"The urgent aspects are medicine, food, shelter, schools."