Via FLC
"... Washington and Jerusalem insist that Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization with bloody hands, and that it is working closely with Tehran to train, arm and finance the Syrian military’s lethal repression of the uprising there. Yet, the European Union continues to treat it foremost as a Lebanese political and social movement.....
“There is no consensus among the E.U. member states for putting Hezbollah in the terrorist-related list of the organizations,” Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, the foreign minister of Cyprus, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, said at the time. “Should there be tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terrorism, the E.U. would consider listing the organization.”
The stark difference in views reflects the many roles that Hezbollah has played since it emerged in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 1982. Hezbollah’s militant wing was responsible for a string of kidnappings and for sophisticated bombings at home and has been accused of bombings abroad. But the group also became a source of social services that the shattered Lebanese government was incapable of providing, and has evolved since then into a political force with two cabinet ministers and a dozen seats in Parliament.
“They are quite professional in this, and this is something some Western donors are admitting that has a positive impression on some Western politicians,” said Stephan Rosiny, a research fellow at the Institute of Middle East Studies at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg.
That in turn provides a rationale for the group’s charitable networks among Lebanese immigrants in Europe. “They may collect money for their institutions, but they aren’t operating publicly,” Mr. Rosiny said. “As long as they aren’t involved in politics and aren’t operating openly, they are tolerated.”
From all indications to date, it is an arrangement that Hezbollah is eager to preserve....
Europe has long been more tolerant of militant Islamic groups than the United States. Before the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda maintained a media information office in London. Much of the planning and organization for the attacks took place in Hamburg, Germany, where the plot’s leader, Mohamed Atta, lived.
American officials privately complained for years about Germany’s reluctance to crack down on businesses that circumvent sanctions against Iran. The pressure appears to have paid off, with Germany last year agreeing to include the European-Iranian Trade Bank, based in Hamburg, on a European Union blacklist. On Wednesday, German police officials arrested four men suspected of sending special valves to Iran for use in the building of a heavy-water reactor.
Yet, where the American and Israeli governments see Iran and Hezbollah gearing up their long-dormant capacity for international terrorism, Europeans strongly differentiate between an international terrorist network like Al Qaeda and what is viewed here as a conflict pitting Israel and the United States on one side against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah on the other.
Some analysts say that Shiite groups like Hezbollah pose less of a risk than Sunni militant organizations like Al Qaeda. “The greatest danger from Islamist militants comes from the Salafists, not the Shiites but the Sunnis,” said Berndt Georg Thamm, a terrorism expert in Berlin, referring to a hard-line branch of Sunni Islam. He cited as examples the man who confessed to killing seven people in southwest France this year and the gunman who killed two United States airmen at the Frankfurt airport last year. “As far as Europe is concerned, Hezbollah is not what is moving it at the moment.” ..."
Uprooted Palestinian 
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