• Shopping Cart Shopping Cart
    0Shopping Cart
Campaign Against Antisemitism
  • Link to X
  • Link to Tiktok
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to LinkedIn
  • Link to Mail
  • ANTISEMITISM
    • Definition of Antisemitism
    • Recognising Antisemitism
    • The Law of Antisemitism
    • Resources for Teachers
  • RESEARCH
    • Prevalence of Antisemitism
    • Antisemitic Crime Levels
    • Prosecutions for Antisemitism
    • Effects on British Jews
    • Antisemitism in Political Parties
    • EHRC
    • Antisemitism in Universities
    • Antisemitism in Local Authorities
  • NEWS
    • Latest News
    • Media Centre
  • PODCAST
  • ABOUT US
    • Our Work
    • Spokespeople
  • HELP US
    • Subscribe
    • Volunteer with us
    • Intern with us
    • Work with us
    • Become a Student Ambassador
    • Donate
  • CONTACT
    • General Enquiries
    • Media Enquiries
    • Licensing
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu
Politics, United Kingdom UK-only e-mail list (not for international stories), Website

Success at last: Hizballah to finally be completely banned in the UK after years of campaigning by CAA and allies

Following a gruelling effort over several years by Campaign Against Antisemitism and our allies, Hizballah will now finally be completely proscribed by the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, with the support of the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: “My priority as Home Secretary is to protect the British people. As part of this, we identify and ban any terrorist organisation which threatens our safety and security, whatever their motivations or ideology which is why I am taking action against several organisations today. Hizballah is continuing in its attempts to destabilise the fragile situation in the Middle East – and we are no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party. Because of this, I have taken the decision to proscribe the group in its entirety.”

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “We are staunch supporters of a stable and prosperous Lebanon. We cannot however be complacent when it comes to terrorism – it is clear the distinction between Hizballah’s military and political wings does not exist, and by proscribing Hizballah in all its forms, the government is sending a clear signal that its destabilising activities in the region are totally unacceptable and detrimental to the UK’s national security.”

Ensuring that the Government completely proscribes Hizballah has been an important objective for Campaign Against Antisemitism since our charity was established.

Until now, the British Government has distinguished between Hizballah’s “military wing” and “political wing”, even though Hizballah mocked the Government and said that no such distinction exists. The loophole enabled brazen shows of support for Hizballah, including pro-Hizballah parades through central London which are organised by a registered charity, and fundraising and even recruitment for any supposedly non-military activities conducted by Hizballah are permitted in Britain. It is extremely likely that such funds were used to finance terrorist activity, and could even have been used to target British subjects.

Every year, Campaign Against Antisemitism has worked closely with the Metropolitan Police Service, the Mayor of London’s Police and Crime Commissioner and the Home Office to try to prevent annual pro-Hizballah “Al Quds Day” parades through London’s most iconic streets, including Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent’s Street.

We have also sent a large team from our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit to gather evidence at the parades, at which Hizballah supporters have marched with placards stating “We are all Hizballah”, heard from antisemitic speakers, and even draped babies in Hizballah flags. In one year, our volunteers were forced to withdraw from the parade.

We even launched a private prosecution against the leader of the parades who in 2017 claimed that “Zionists” had paid the Government to burn down tower blocks, days after the horrifying Grenfell Tower inferno, but our private prosecution was successfully taken over and shut down by the Crown Prosecution Service, despite the best efforts of our lawyers. Indeed, there has been an appalling failure to tackle incitement at the parades, with police even using “national security” grounds to avoid answering Campaign Against Antisemitism’s requests for information on whether anybody has ever been arrested for membership of Hizballah at the pro-Hizballah parades.

Progress in proscribing Hizballah has long been prevented by disagreement between the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, even though the decision can be made by the Home Secretary alone, so long as a majority of MPs agree with them, which has not been in doubt. The disagreement is rooted in diplomats’ preference for being able to openly engage with Hizballah, which has a major role in Lebanese politics. That has led to a perverse and dangerous loophole: when Hizballah was proscribed by a Labour Government in 2008, only Hizballah’s “military wing” was added to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.

That meant that any person giving a police officer “reasonable suspicion” that they are supporting the terrorist organisation committed an offence under the act, but only if the officer could be sure that they are supporting Hizballah militarily and not politically. That is because Hizballah’s imaginary “political wing” was not proscribed, enabling those on the annual Hizballah parades to claim to be supporting Hizballah’s political wing, not its military wing.

Even Hizballah found this false distinction ridiculous. In October 2012, Hizballah Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said: “We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hizballah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hizballah, 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.” Hizballah was also clear what “resistance” means. Its Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, who is the leader of any fictitious “wing” of Hizballah that the Government may wish to imagine, said: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Hizballah has been true to its mission, bombing Jewish targets from Buenas Aires to Burgas, and it has even been blamed for setting off two bombs in London outside buildings used by Jews and Israelis.

Over the course of years, we have argued for the total proscription of Hizballah with Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, and each of her successors since, including making representations to Sajid Javid. Recognising that much of the opposition to fully proscribing Hizballah came from within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, we have supplemented our representations to the Home Office with formal submissions to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and others.

In an attempt to force a decision from the Home Office, Campaign Against Antisemitism also launched a parliamentary petition which gained over 15,000 signatures from all but one of the UK’s 650 parliamentary constituencies, from Orkney to St Ives. The 15,000 signatures considerably exceeded the 10,000 required to compel the Government to consider the matter and formally respond, but when the Home Office did issue a statement, it shamefully failed to rule on the issue.

During our campaigning work against Hizballah, we gained the support of figures from the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, a former Downing Street Chief of Staff to a prominent Muslim leader. Their voices were strengthened by calls from the Mayor of London and others, but the Government repeatedly proved unyielding.

Whilst the position of the British Government has been a long and shameful betrayal of British Jews, some have called for even greater leniency. Jeremy Corbyn, who famously called Hizballah his friends, even argued for the lifting of any restrictions on the group in the UK and spoke at numerous pro-Hizballah parades. One branch of the Labour Party even debated whether members of Hizballah should be allowed to join the Party.

Gideon Falter, Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are delighted that our efforts, and those of our friends and allies, have finally borne fruit. Hizballah supporters will no longer be able to intimidate British Jews with relative impunity as they have done for years, knowing that they enjoy the friendship of figures like Jeremy Corbyn who even called for the total lifting of restrictions on Hizballah in this country. Successive Governments of all political affiliations have shamed themselves by resisting calls for them to act, with progress only coming now due to the growing national recognition that antisemitism has flourished in Britain to the extent that our country’s Jewish minority is now fearful for its very future. We salute the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary for being the first holders of their offices to finally right this wrong and close this loophole. Today it became harder for the supporters of genocidal antisemitic terrorism to operate in the United Kingdom.”

Related

      
25/02/2019
Search Search
  • Major report reveals that Iran has targeted “prominent Jewish individuals”10/07/2025 - 12:22
  • Success: Home Offices rejects Hamas application for de-proscription10/07/2025 - 11:05
  • Britain’s March Against Antisemitism07/07/2025 - 21:00
  • CAA preparing criminal prosecution of Roger Waters07/07/2025 - 15:43
  • Comedian Reginald D. Hunter appears in court in private prosecution brought by CAA07/07/2025 - 12:33
  • “The only good pig is a dead pig”: CAA uncovers new footage of Bob Vylan04/07/2025 - 17:24
  • Britain’s March Against Antisemitism to be held in central London03/07/2025 - 18:09
  • Glastonbury, and the undoing of Britain30/06/2025 - 20:49
  • Rap duo leads “Death to the IDF” chant at Glastonbury Festival30/06/2025 - 17:28
  • CAA uncovers post by Palestine Action activist which appears to glorify terrorists27/06/2025 - 18:56

We are seeking to recruit a Communications and Research Manager an Education and Outreach Intern to join our London office

Join the fight

Subscribe
Volunteer
Donate

Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law. Everything that we do is done by people who volunteer their time, using donations contributed by members of the public. Join the fight against antisemitism by subscribing to our updates, volunteering, or donating.

Related

Justice, justice, you shall pursue - צדק צדק תרדף
© Copyright - Campaign Against Antisemitism, all rights reserved. Our logo is a registered trademark.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is a charitable incorporated organisation registered with the Charity Commission (number 1163790).
Use of our website is subject to our terms. Trees are planted every year to keep our work carbon neutral.
  • Link to X
  • Link to Tiktok
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to LinkedIn
  • Link to Mail
Link to: Citing CAA research, Judicial College adds International Definition of Antisemitism and section on use of ‘Zionist’ as a slur to its handbook for the judiciary Link to: Citing CAA research, Judicial College adds International Definition of Antisemitism and section on use of ‘Zionist’ as a slur to its handbook for the judiciary Citing CAA research, Judicial College adds International Definition of Antisemitism... Link to: Elderly man reportedly attacked in Islington and left with blood pouring from his mouth just for being Jewish Link to: Elderly man reportedly attacked in Islington and left with blood pouring from his mouth just for being Jewish Elderly man reportedly attacked in Islington and left with blood pouring from...
Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top

We use cookies to track use of our website and your preferences. Use of our website is subject to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Read more.Accept cookies and our terms of use

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Terms of use and privacy policy
Accept settingsHide notification only
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES BY E-MAIL

By default you will receive weekly e-mails, but when you receive the first e-mail you can change to daily or monthly e-mails instead.

If you prefer to subscribe later, you can do so by scrolling right to the bottom of this page.