Since 2012, the European Union has officially considered what it calls the “military wing” of the Iran-backed guerrilla organization Hizballah—responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians from Buenos Aires to Bulgaria—a terrorist group. Yet the EU insists that the group’s “political wing” is a distinct, and legal, entity. Daniel Schwammenthal argues that it’s time for Brussels to confront reality:

Hizballah’s own leaders have repeatedly dismissed the notion that theirs is an organization neatly bifurcated into separate wings. Instead, they proudly proclaim that they are one. Responding to the EU’s partial ban a decade ago, the Hizballah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi repeated what other Hizballah leaders had said before: “Hizballah is a single, large organization. We have no wings that are separate from one another.”

The true reason that the EU hasn’t banned Hizballah’s so-called political arm is not because anyone really believes in Hizballah’s immaculate bifurcation. Rather, the argument is that Hizballah is a major player in Lebanese politics, and banning it would supposedly destabilize the country. Continuing the so-called “critical dialogue” with Hizballah is believed somehow to help maintain a level of order in the country.

[But] Hizballah is not a normal domestic player that can be reasoned with, moderated, or somehow stirred toward more responsible statecraft through just the right amount of “dialogue.” . . . Despite Europe’s continuing engagement, Hizballah’s very nature inevitably facilitated and contributed to the massive corruption that has brought Lebanon near to economic collapse. . . . Europe can’t stabilize Lebanon by continuing to legitimize the country’s main agent of instability.

Today, Hamas is set to release three Israelis and five Thais in exchange for the freeing of 110 prisoners. But dozens more remain in captivity, and many more terrorists will leave prison to get them out. The fact that this is occurring almost sixteen months after the October 7 massacres suggests that allowing Qatar—an officially designated major non-NATO ally of the U.S.—to host Hamas has given Washington very little leverage. Michael Pregent argues that it is high time this wealthy Gulf emirate face consequences:

A U.S. base should give America leverage with the country hosting it—it should not give leverage to Iran, in the case of Iraq; and it should not give leverage to Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis in the case of Qatar.

Qatar is counting on the proposition that hosting a strategically significant U.S. base insulates Doha from the repercussions of funding and supporting Hamas attacks against Israel and helping the terrorist organization survive to carry out more such attacks in the future—attacks promised by Hamas leaders from luxury hotels in Doha.

How did the Hamas political office end up in the capital of a U.S. ally? Qatar’s ambassador to the U.S. says the nation was asked by the Obama administration in 2012 to set up “indirect lines of communication” with Hamas. Doha gravely mistook the request. Qatar was certainly not asked to give Hamas billions of dollars, give its leaders a platform on Al Jazeera to call for jihad, and embed its reporters to film terrorist attacks.

There should be a cost: targeted sanctions and designations like those established by the Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs Task Force, which was set up to seize and reallocate assets to support the victims of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. The U.S. should seize assets tied to individuals and entities in Qatar for supporting terrorist groups, especially those tied to Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. should use those funds to replenish the U.S. Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism Fund.