When, as Israel’s then-opposition leader, Menachem Begin first visited the U.S. in 1948, a group of Jewish intellectuals—among them Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt—wrote a fervid letter to the New York Times condemning him and comparing him with the Nazis. Milton Viorst has revived these charges and added fresh and still more preposterous ones in his recent book Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal, arguing that Begin’s prime-ministership initiated Israel’s transformation from a bastion of peace and tolerance into a militaristic and belligerent state. To the contrary, writes Moshe Fuksman Shal:

[Begin’s] Ḥerut party, [the precursor to the Likud], became a principal voice for democracy and liberty in Israeli politics. It was Ḥerut that was one of the leading opponents of the martial law that had been imposed on Israel’s Arab population until 1966. This opposition was consistent with Begin’s principled belief in equal rights for all of the country’s citizens.

The party also played a major role in defending freedom of the press, [including for] media outlets on the opposite side of the political map. . . .

Contrary to Viorst’s assertion that Begin was somehow the instigator of a new anti-peace Israel, when Begin agreed to hand over the Sinai peninsula to Anwar Sadat he demonstrated his commitment to peace as an ideal, even at the cost of giving up a key territorial asset. This can be contrasted with the famous statement from the previous Labor government that it would be “better to have Sharm el-Sheikh without peace than peace without Sharm el-Sheikh.”

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.