After seeing this quote pasted into a story about Canadian citizens being brought home from Lebanon
His appearance came on the same day that the White House warned it had evidence that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are trying to destabilize and overthrow Lebanon’s government.
Echoing the U.S. warning, the minister said Lebanon could again erupt into violence.
“Hezbollah are a terrorist organization armed to the teeth. They are like the Taliban on steroids,” he said. “They are a very dangerous organization.”
I decided to educate myself a little more on the Hezbollah.
The Dominion has a very informative article
Interestingly, both Jean Chretien and Bill Graham, then Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs respectively, resisted placing Hezbollah on the terrorist list. Chretien met with Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, in Beirut in October 2002. On November 28, a new set of groups was banned–and Hezbollah was still not among them. Irwin Cotler denounced the omission as “inexplicable and, given their [Hezbollah’s] murderous ideology, unconscionable.”
B’nai Brith responded the next day, on November 29, with a press conference in which they announced a lawsuit against the government, brought on the grounds that the government was failing to protect Canadians by refusing to ban Hezbollah.
The following day, November 30, the National Post picked up a story from the Washington Times claiming that, at a Beirut rally, Nasrallah had condoned and encouraged suicide bombing. Nasrallah was alleged to have said: “Suicide bombings should be exported outside Palestine”; and “I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide, don’t be shy about it.”
Two weeks later, after going to Beirut to investigate, CBC journalist Neil MacDonald exposed the story as a fabrication.
snip
MacDonald reported on CBC on December 11 that, “Ottawa now knows that the Nasrallah quotes in the Washington Times about exporting suicide attacks were almost certainly never uttered.”
However, the alleged comments by Nasrallah had already received enough attention to force the government’s hand; a special Cabinet committee meeting was held the evening of December 10, 2002, in which it was decided to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The Canada Gazette, official newspaper of the government, reported, “The change has been made on the basis of the close connection between the organization as a whole and the Hezbollah External Security Organization, and the recent statement by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, encouraging suicide bombings.”
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