Since the U.S. announced its decision to remove all its troops from Afghanistan by September, there is widespread fear that the Taliban will soon vanquish the national government. Having lived through the Islamist group’s rule once already, the country’s last Jew has decided to leave. Sam Raskin writes:

Zebulon Simentov, who was born in the 1950s, has remained in the country throughout a Soviet invasion, imprisonment, and the Taliban’s reign—but the group’s potential resurgence may be the last straw. . . . “Why should I stay? They call me an infidel,” Simentov told [reporters]. Simentov, who lives in Kabul in its only synagogue, said he might move to Israel, where his wife and two daughters live, according to reports.

When the Taliban, a Sunni Islamist group, ruled much of the country from 1996 through 2001, Simentov was imprisoned four times by the “disgraceful” movement, he said. They also tried to convert him. . . . At one point while in prison, the obstinate Simentov argued so vehemently with the then-only other Jew in the country, who has since died, that they were both booted from prison.

Jewish merchants lived and traded in Afghanistan since at least the 7th century, arriving there from nearby Persia—although a local tradition has it that Afghan Jews are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. For most of the community’s history, the largest Jewish population was concentrated in the northwestern city of Herat, where Simentov himself was born, and which was home to a few hundred Jews in the 20th century. Now Afghan Jewry has gone the way of many Jewish communities of the Islamic world.

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.