ABSTRACT
The Lebanese political party Hizbullah has been in the news a great deal over the past several years, even meriting mention in at least one State of the Union address. The group was accused of single-handedly instigating the July 2006 war with Israel and subsequently of attempting to topple the Lebanese government. For those with longer memories, Hizbullah is generally associated with the 1983 bombings of the US embassy, Marine barracks and French MNF headquarters in Beirut, and with the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight to Beirut. They are also cited by the US State Department in connection with the kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon and the hostage crisis that led to the Iran-Contra affair. Despite the uncertainty of these allegations (Blanford 2003; Harik 2004: 65), they are the purported reason for the party’s listing on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, and for the recent characterization of Hizbullah as the ‘A-list’ of terrorism.1
