Hezbollah European Union. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 in support of the Free Lebanon State, Israel occupied a strip of south Lebanon, which was controlled by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Lebanese Christian militia supported by Israel. Hezbollah was founded in the early 1980s as part of an Iranian effort to aggregate a variety of militant Lebanese Shi'a groups into a unified organization. Hezbollah acts as a proxy for Iran in the ongoing Iran–Israel proxy conflict. Hezbollah was conceived by Muslim clerics and funded by Iran primarily to harass the Israeli occupation. Its leaders were followers of
Hezbollah its message to the entire Arab world. In addition, Hezbollah has a weekly publication, "Al Ahd", which was established in 1984. It is the only media outlet which is openly affiliated with the organization. Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar airs programming designed to inspire suicide attacks in Gaza, the West Bank, and Iraq. Al-Manar's transmission in France is prohibited due to its promotion of Holocaust denial, a criminal offense in France. The United States lists Al-Manar television network as a terrorist organization. Al-Manar was designated as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity," and banned by the United States in December 2004.