Germany bans Hezbollah, raids Mosques

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Hezbollah Party affiliation, display of public symbols, media publications, etc are now going to be treated the exact same, legally, as Nazi affiliation, promotion, swastikas, etc.

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There’s probably something they have in common. I’m trying to think of what that could be......

Jews did this gif.

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Germany bans Hezbollah, raids Mosques

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Wake up America !!!!

Germany has a small problem with biker gangs made up of Lebanese immigrants who are trying to muscle into the drug trade, or at least were when I last checked in 2015. There also is a vast network of Shia foundations that essentially funnel money from the West to Shia groups in the ME.

It seems idiotic, and it is, but Hezbollah is a “legitimate” part of the Lebanese government and participates in the domestic political process unlike pretty much every other notable terrorist organization in the world. I can sort of understand why Europeans tried cooperation and “dialogue” given their normal diplomatic operating procedures.

They aren’t trying to take over Lebanon, they primarily just want the Jews to return Lebanese land and to frick off. The problem is that over time they’ve gotten increasingly involved in the Palestinian issue and are heavily influenced by Iran now.

Half the reason they hate Israel is because the Palestinians were kicked out and the PLO set up camp in Lebanon which inflamed a civil war. Then when Israel invaded to deal with the PLO again, Southern Lebanon - primarily Shia - paid the price.

The Lebanese Civil War - wiki is one of the most fascinating conflicts I’ve ever studied. Truly crazy shite given the factions, chain of events, and length.

I lived in Beirut and had an amazing time. Lebanon’s a great place. Without Hezbollah it’d be even better. That being said I understand why they exist, and I had no problems in Lebanon at all, both in Baalbek Valley and the South around Hezbollah sympathizers.

The Shia are in my experience far more “western” and liberal than the Sunnis. I was 10 miles from the Israel border, in a primarily Shia area, and saw tons of women in g-strings, dudes covered in tattoos, drinking and smoking hash and hookah at the beach.

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Pretty strange to see this come from Germany before other European nations. I wonder what German intelligence collected that changed their mind.

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My theory...

The Trump administration has been putting the economic screws to Iran. Iran is a major (if not THE major) funding source for Hezbollah. This means Hezbollah gets fewer funds from Iran. Hezbollah could well be at the point where they've gotten too aggressive with their attempts at fund-raising through their political arms, enough so that Germany has seen constant issues that prompted this (because they wouldn't do it on just a one-off or even two-off situation).

Da muzzies might see the gas chambers!

I didn't mean to imply that the relationship was static, but the fact that the major hawza are in Qom and Najaf means that relatively orphaned Shia groups relatively far from Iran-Iraq will always look to those countries for leadership. I also bring this up to point out that the regional aims of Iran precede this current government, as there were clerics in the 60's and 70's who were essentially proselytizing in areas where there were very few Shia before, such as Morocco, England, and France.

The direct relationship with Hezbollah and Iran will wax and wane, as their regional interests don't always directly align, but the relationship of peripheral Shia groups to the centers of learning in Iran and Iraq will always remain.

The Shia are also a relatively interesting group, as by the 1700's, the Jafari Usuli school had won, which means that the 200 million (or so, as population totals for Shia usually underestimate their numbers) Twelver Shia have relatively few divisions than other Muslim groups. It is fairly rare that you see, for example, one Ayatollah contradict another, even though the internal disagreements on jurisprudence can be significant.

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The Shia are in my experience far more “western” and liberal than the Sunnis. I was 10 miles from the Israel border, in a primarily Shia area, and saw tons of women in g-strings, dudes covered in tattoos, drinking and smoking hash and hookah at the beach.

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Myself and others like SCH, SCLibertarian, Lisa Whiskey, and MrCarton, among others, have been saying the Shia were more liberal for some years now. The geopolitics are complicated, and that gives a false impression of Shia Islam as a whole, but if there is one Muslim sect that is able to change with the times, it is the Shia sect. Sunni clerics do not have nearly the same amount of leeway with regard to rulings as the Shia do (do to ijtihad) and thus aren't as flexible.