Hezbollah says it has been the victim of a propaganda campaign and Canada made a mistake in listing it as a terrorist organization.

Until Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham had resisted adding the organization to a list of terrorist groups, saying the social arm of Hezbollah was a legitimate charity.

Bill Graham and Wayne Easter
Bill Graham and Wayne Easter

He said he changed his mind – in part – after hearing media reports of the group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, urging Palestinians to expand their suicide bombings worldwide.

But those reports have not been confirmed. CBC TV reported Wednesday that no record of those remarks could be found, and the Canadian embassy in Beirut has tried and failed to document the quotes.

The quotes were in a story written by London-based freelancer Paul Martin. He refused to discuss the original quotes with CBC TV. Instead he referred to a passage that he claimed came from Hezbollah's official magazine.

Martin said in the magazine Nasrallah calls America "the enemy of this nation" and said "we will fight the enemy or them anywhere and everywhere" and that "we need to work on the culture of suicide missions."

Hezbollah said Canada has fallen for a disinformation campaign run out of Israel, and the decision to list the organization as a terrorist group will hurt Canada's image in the Arab world.

Solicitor General Wayne Easter said the decision to ban donations to Hezbollah was based only partly on Sheik Nasrallah's alleged comments.

"The decision we made, and why it takes so long to make it, is that we base that decision on criminal, security intelligence reports that we can back up factually," Easter said.

Hezbollah portrayed differently in West, Middle East

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah is a heroic resistance movement.

To the Bush administration in the United States, it is the "A-team of terror."

Lebanese newspaper columnist Ibrahim al-Mousawi said the group was born out of Israel's 1982 invasion, which he says killed nearly 20,000 Lebanese civilians.

"Hezbollah started resisting this invasion just like any people that defend their country and their people. This resistance is depicted as terrorism by the Americans and the Israelis, and I would be very sorry to hear the Canadians using the same language," he said.

The group fought the Israelis until they left Lebanon two years ago.

Today Hezbollah is a political party that holds 12 seats in Lebanon's parliament. It also runs schools, hospitals and social services.

Senior Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Izz el-Dine said the organization has no quarrel with the West.

"Hezbollah defends its land, its people, its independence, and Hezbollah does not have any branches outside Lebanon," he said.

Sheikh Izz el-Dine said the spin campaign against Hezbollah is designed to provide Israel with an excuse for another invasion of Lebanon.

He said the invasion would coincide with an American attack on Iraq.