Middle East Politics: Rightful and Legitimate Institutions or Terror Organizations?

Is it reasonable to label State institutions as a "terrorist organizations"? This study is aimed to establish if a political party represented in a national parliament – or even a State or a Government as a whole – can be considered a "terror organization", and therefore proscribed as such. Through the analysis of some cases stories, this research assesses the legitimacy – or the lawfulness – of some political institutions in the Middle East. The essay scrutinizes, inter alia, the case of Hezbollah ("Party of Allah" or "Party of God"), a radical Islamic Shiite organization based in Lebanon, and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), a Sunni movement based in Gaza, both backed by the Government of Tehran – Iran as a whole is also taken into account. To have a broader framework in the region, this analysis touches also on: Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Afghanistan under Taliban rule.