The advent of modern political Zionism in the 1890s inspired many Sephardi and Mizraḥi Jews to leave their homes for the land of Israel, and many more to establish Zionist groups in the countries where they lived. But even before that, non-Ashkenazi Jews had done much to encourage Jewish settlement in Palestine. Most importantly, Rabbi Judah Solomon Alkalai, born in Sarajevo in 1798, was, along with such Ashkenazi contemporaries as Moses Hess and Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, a major proto-Zionist thinker, as Ashley Perry writes.

Alkalai had the idea, echoed later by Theodor Herzl, to get various nations to give the Jews a homeland just as they had, around the same time, assisted the Greeks and others. . . . [He] wrote, “the salvation of Israel lies in addressing to the kings of the earth a general request for the welfare of our nation and our holy cities, and for our return in repentance to the house of our mother.” . . . He also called for the establishment of a bank to finance the emigration of the Jews and for settlement societies and other practical steps.

In 1843, he wrote the treatise Minḥat Yehudah, which called for the adoption of Hebrew as a national language, the purchase of land in Palestine, development of agriculture to form the basis for absorption of new immigrants, and encouragement of a sovereign-based national unity. At the age of seventy-three, Alkalai traveled to Israel to determine the possibilities for settlement there—an arduous journey at his age. More remarkably, he came to live in the Land of Israel with his wife in 1874, at the age of seventy-six. . . .

Around the same time, another Sephardi Jew was laying the practical foundations for Jewish settlement in Israel, and in Jerusalem in particular. Born in 1784 in the Italian city of Livorno but raised in England, Sir Moses Montefiore was so struck by his visit to Jerusalem in 1827 that he became devoted to the city and its inhabitants for the rest of his life. He later used his position as president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews to carry on a notable correspondence with Charles Henry Churchill, the British consul in Damascus, concerning the resettlement of Jews in Israel. His acts of philanthropy in building the Jewish settlement in the Holy Land are numerous.

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.