Hizballah as a Social Movement Organization: A Framing Approach

No other Islamist group has provoked more controversy than Hizballah. The ‘Party of God’ was established by Shia Muslims in 1982 to oppose the Israeli invasion and subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon. Although Hizballah has routinely denied responsibility, the group has been held accountable for the suicide attacks against Western military targets in 1983 which killed almost 300 US and French troops in Beirut. As a result, Hizballah has long been on the US terror list. In his January 2002 State of the Union address, then President George Bush stated that Hizballah was part of a ‘terrorist underworld’ that threatened US national security. On the contrary, most European governments are reluctant to place the Party of God on their terrorist blacklists, preferring to ban only the military wing of the organization, known as Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (‘The Islamic Resistance’).