By Neil Lazarus

Israel's troubled relationship with Lebanon can be traced to 1948 and Israel's War of Independence, when nearly 120,000 Palestinian refugees fled to Lebanon, living in refugee camps in the South. The abundance of refugees and the forceful removal of the PLO leadership from Jordan to Lebanon during Black September, (1970) enabled Lebanon to become the springboard for Palestinian attacks against Israel; the 1970's saw a number of brutal terrorist attacks on Israel from what had become known as "Fatahland".

In 1982 Israel's armed forces entered Lebanon to bring peace to the Galilee by driving out the PLO which was forced to leave Lebanon for Tunisia. After the war Israel created a Security Zone in Southern Lebanon to protect itself from further attack.