Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal: Southern Lebanon
Debate between Stephen Crabb and Philip Hollobone(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal in southern Lebanon.
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to his place to listen and respond. I called the debate because on the northern border of one of our closest allies, Israel, there is a rocket arsenal of up to 150,000 missiles aimed at all its major towns and cities, and something should be done about that. In the debate, I will rely heavily on a superb report by the High Level Military Group, “Hizballah’s terror army: how to prevent a third Lebanon war”, which was published in October.
The High Level Military Group is a group of distinguished international senior military figures, including our own General Lord Richard Dannatt and Colonel Richard Kemp, which has looked into the issue thoroughly. The report gives us a stark warning:
“The last war between Hizballah and Israel in 2006 was a severe blow to the terrorist group. But since then, Hizballah has been able to recover militarily, amassing a huge stockpile of weapons, developing and fielding new and more precise and lethal systems, and gaining combat experience fighting for Iran and…in Syria.”
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
On the subject of Hezbollah being a terrorist organisation, does my hon. Friend share my view that the distinction that we choose to make on our side—that there is a military and a civil wing to Hezbollah—is entirely artificial and that Hezbollah sees itself as a unified terrorist military organisation?
Mr Hollobone
Yes. Not only do my right hon. Friend and I agree that there is no distinction, but so does Hezbollah. In October 2012 its Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said:
“We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other… Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”