Hezbollah flag
Hezbollah flagReuters

Despite a European ban on Hezbollah’s “military wing”, the Hungarian ambassador to Lebanon recently paid a visit to a southern Lebanon “monument to jihad” belonging to the group.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV reported about the visit, and said that the ambassador "expressed his admiration at Hezbollah’s great achievement for Lebanon, at liberating the land and the people."

The report aired on February 28, and on Monday was translated and posted to YouTube by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In July of 2013, the European Union listed Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organization.

At the time the EU stressed it will continue to dialogue with all the parties in Lebanon and as such, chose not to blacklist Hezbollah’s political arm, which is a key party in the Lebanese government.

Two months ago, a French presidential aide held talks in Beirut with a Hezbollah official, the first meeting of its kind between a French official and a Hezbollah leader since the EU ban.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, responded to the EU’s decision to blacklist only Hezbollah’s military wing by likening the separation between Hezbollah’s “military” and “political” arms to trying to distinguish between one’s left arm and right arm.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said at the time that the EU had only gone “half way” by failing to blacklist Hezbollah’s political arm as well.

Unlike the EU, Bahrain has gone all the way with Hezbollah and in April of 2013 became the first Arab country to blacklist the group as a terrorist organization.