Hizbullah Stays on U.S. Terrorist Black List

The United States will pressure Iran and Syria to stop backing Hizbullah, whose armed wing will remain on Washington's list of terrorist groups, a U.S. official here said Friday. "American policy on Hizbullah is not going to change," said Scott Carpenter, a deputy assistant secretary of state who spoke during the World Economic Forum summit at the Dead Sea resort. "They remain on our terrorist list." Carpenter accused the group of seeking the armed overthrow of the Lebanese government, and said as long as Hizbullah maintains an arsenal, "we will continue to confront it" and its foreign backers. "We will put a great deal of pressure on Syria and Iran to stop funding and supplying Hizbullah," said Carpenter, who sat on a three-member panel discussing political developments in Lebanon. "If you want to play a role in the democratic process, you shouldn't have arms and you shouldn't be receiving a great deal of money and support from outside Lebanon." But a speaker on the same panel said Washington's terror labeling of Hizbullah -- which the Bush administration recently extended to the group's Al-Manar television channel -- is counterproductive and contributes to the gulf between Americans and Arabs by widening radicalism on both sides. "This unilateral labeling and condemning and threatening and changing regimes and terrorist attacks, has got to change -- on both sides," said Rami Khouri, editor-at-large of The Daily Star, a Beirut daily newspaper. If Al-Manar TV is a terrorist organization, as Washington has decreed, Khouri said, "we can make the case that Fox TV is a weapon of mass destruction." Most Lebanese credit the group for forcing the Israelis to end their decades-long occupation of part of Lebanon, and support the integration of Hizbullah into Lebanon's security services. The United States has backed similar transformations of Iraqi militias, where Kurdish and other armed wings of political parties have changed their uniforms and joined the Iraqi security services. Khouri said Hizbullah had many admirable characteristics: a tight organization, a clear ideology and effective social welfare wing. "It's the only real political party in the Arab world," Khouri said, jokingly comparing Hizbullah's otherworldly credentials to those claimed by U.S. President Bush. "They have a direct line to God and to the neighborhood. Sounds a lot like George Bush," Khouri joked. Carpenter said the United States remains "deeply concerned" about covert presence of Syrian security services in Lebanon. "We need to make sure the temptation to re-enter through the back door, the side door, the basement, through the roof or through a window that's left open," he said.(AP)