by Cnaan Liphshiz

In his many years of service for France’s spy agency, Claude Moniquet has seen much evidence linking Hezbollah to terrorist-related activities in Europe and beyond.

The attacks, says Moniquet, a 20-year veteran of the DGSE intelligence service, go back as far as 1983, to the bombing of military barracks in Beirut that killed nearly 300 people, including 58 French soldiers.

“It implicates the much bigger financial structure that facilitated the attack,” said Nuno Wahnon Martins, director of European Affairs at B'nai B'rith. “[It] means Hezbollah’s entire drug-smuggling and money-laundering operations are serving the organization’s terrorist activities.” ...more.

Twitter must divulge details about French users who posted anti-Semitic messages, a French tribunal ruled.

Thursday's order by a Grand Instance Court judge in Paris came in response to a lawsuit by the Union of French Jewish Students that sought to limit the impunity with which Twitter users may disseminate anti-Semitic incitement.

“Social networks were created as essentially democratic tools that are also being used by people who oppose democratic principles,” Nuno Wahnon Martins, director of European Affairs at B'nai B'rith International, told JTA. “Like any democracy, the social networks also need to defend themselves, and the first step is to deny those who spread hate speech in anonymity as something to hide behind...more.

During a visit to the Dutch capital’s Portuguese Synagogue, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said European Jews “exemplify cultural integration.”

Barroso, a former prime minister of his native Portugal who today holds the most powerful position in the European Union, visited the synagogue on Jan. 8.  He also said Jews were “at the front line of the fight against extremism.”

“For Jews, the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam represents religious freedom, and I think that is part of the importance of President Barroso’s visit here,” Nuno Wahnon Martins, the Lisbon-born director of European Affairs at B'nai B'rith International, told JTA...more.