EU declares Hamas terrorist group, freezes assets

[L@mplighterM]

RIVA DEL GARDA, Italy (AP) — The European Union will declare all wings of the militant Palestinian group Hamas a terrorist organization and freeze its assets after dozens of deadly attacks in Israel, the bloc's foreign ministers said today.

The EU previously had blacklisted only the group's military arm, Izzedine al Qassam. But — taking a cue from Washington — it agreed today to block funding to Hamas political offshoots, fund-raising charities and social welfare groups, after a suicide bus bombing last month that killed 22 people.

President George W. Bush froze the U.S. assets of five European-based organizations in response to the Aug. 19 bombing, claiming they raised money for Hamas.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group both claimed responsibility for the blast, one of the deadliest Palestinian attacks in the past three years of fighting.

Officials at the EU head office will meet Monday to discuss details of the blacklisting, which requires the freezing of Hamas assets. They were expected to formalize the decision in coming weeks.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the decision removes Hamas "from the circle of legitimate negotiating partners" and is "a clear statement that anyone who uses terrorism does not have a place in the family of nations."

EU foreign ministers ending a two-day meeting on Lake Garda in the Italian Alps also reacted with dismay today to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas' decision to submit his resignation. Abbas offered to resign following a long power struggle with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Israel and the Palestinians must remain committed to the "road map" peace plan backed by the EU, the United States, Russia and the United Nations. That peace plan envisions the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called Abbas's resignation "a further difficulty" for Mideast peace.

"It is a huge tragedy that the Palestinians should be so divided," he said.

EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana left for the region for talks with Palestinian and Israeli officials in hopes of averting further violence.

Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh spoke of "another big setback for the whole peace process in the Middle East."

The EU decision to blacklist all of Hamas reflected the growing sense in European capitals that it is a single organization, not a cluster of groups and activists working independently.

France long opposed a tougher stance on Hamas, saying it was wary of cutting off avenues of negotiation with Palestinians and hurting the group's social services for Palestinians. Enforcement of an assets freeze or a ban on suspected Hamas offshoots would be a "voluntary" decision for individual EU nations, de Villepin said.

Hamas, which was created in 1987, wants an Islamic state between the Mediterranean and Jordan. It opposed the 1993 Oslo, Norway, accords calling for an autonomous Palestinian state next door to Israel.

One of the five European-based organizations that had its assets frozen by Washington was the Paris-based Committee for Charity and Aid for the Palestinians. De Villepin has said French investigators found nothing wrong with the group's work.

Also today, a few thousand anti-globalization activists marched peacefully through Riva del Garda, waving peace flags and banners as they demonstrated against EU trade and foreign policies and the World Trade Organization.

A small group of demonstrators spray-painted anti-WTO slogans on a gas station.

http://torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968705899037

It’s the right decision but it still remains to be seen whether it’ll reduce terrorism, I’m fairly certain that aid from the EU or elsewhere will fill the vacuum.

[humus_sapiens]

Originally posted by L@mplighterM
RIVA DEL GARDA, Italy (AP) — The European Union will declare all wings of the militant Palestinian group Hamas a terrorist organization and freeze its assets...

Officials at the EU head office will meet Monday to discuss details of the blacklisting, which requires the freezing of Hamas assets. They were expected to formalize the decision in coming weeks.
...

Will declare, Will freeze, Will discuss details. IOW, the terrorists are encouraged to take the money now and deposit somewhere else?

[Mediocrates]

http://www.israelnn.com/print.php3?what=news&id=49318

How the EU, CNN, and the CFR View Hamas
The foreign ministers of the European Union decided yesterday, after months of indecision, to add Hamas' so-called "political wing" to its list of proscribed terrorist organizations. Until now, the EU maintained the pretense that Hamas' fund-raising and charitable arms are separate from its terrorist murder divisions. France and Germany finally agreed, however, that the two wings are simply two sides of the same terrorist coin.

The EU decision follows efforts by the Bush administration to freeze the U.S. accounts of top Hamas officials and a move by even the Palestinian Authority to close Hamas' political offices. It took the EU until less than two months ago to add the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas' official "military wing" to its outlawed-terrorist lists.

The European Union's decision had a short-lived effect on CNN's reporting. In previous stories on Hamas, CNN described it only as being "on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations" or by writing, "Hamas' military wing, Izz-a-din el Kassam, has admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians as well as attacks against the Israeli military." In reporting the EU decision, however, CNN was more specific, writing, "The Palestinian militant group is opposed to the state of Israel and has carried out suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began about three years ago."

However, in its story on the attack against Sheikh Yassin, which appeared about four hours later, CNN reverted to form and neglected to inform its readers that Hamas is opposed to the existence of the State of Israel. Instead it wrote only, "Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organization whose military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has carried out attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets."

Even the Council of Foreign Relations "terrorism answers" web page writes about Hamas, albeit in its 5th paragraph, that the organization's "founding charter pledges the group to carry out armed struggle, try to destroy Israel and replace Arafat's government with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson noted that it is not clear why the CFR site singles out "the West Bank and Gaza," when in fact the same sentence states - twice - that Hamas' goal is to uproot and replace all of Israel.

For the record, the U.S. State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002," released this past April, also hesitates to attribute to *all* of Hamas the desire to destroy Israel. Its description of Hamas states, "Various HAMAS elements have used both political and violent means, including terrorism, to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel."

On the other hand, Hamas spokesmen themselves have been less bashful. On May 22 of this year, Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar told BBC's Tim Sebastian, "I'm telling you frankly, the attitude of Islam is not to accept a foreign state in this area." When Sebastian asked, "So until Israel ceases to exist, you won't lay down your arms. Is that right?", Zahar said, "First of all, we are a part of the independent Islamist-- this is the attitude of thousands and millions of people"

In May 2001, chief Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi called on Hamas in Gaza to wage an all-out war against Israel, and has repeatedly stated that Prime Minister Sharon and other Israeli leaders will be targeted by Hamas.

Since 1993, Hamas has dispatched 113 suicide terrorists against Israel, including 72 since September 2000 - murdering (since 2000) 227 Israelis and wounding 1,393. In addition, Hamas has recruited and operated 18 Israeli-Arab cells.

Israel and the United States welcomed the EU's decision, the practical ramifications of which will be discussed tomorrow by a group of EU intelligence experts. Hamas assets in Europe will be frozen, and its leaders will be blacklisted.

A Hamas spokesman condemned the decision, calling for a Muslim boycott of EU goods and demanding that the Europeans "place the Zionist enemy on the top of the global terrorist group list."