After the expulsion from Jordan in 1970, the PLO conducted terrorist attacks on the towns and villages of northern Israel from bases in southern Lebanon. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Al Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DPFLP), and the Syrian-led Saika organization intensified the campaign. Two of those attacks, one on the town of Kiryat Shmona on April 11, 1974, and another on the town of Ma'alot on May 15, 1974, were particularly noteworthy for their brutality and the revulsion they aroused in Israel, Western Europe and the United States, as well as for the enthusiasm they evoked among the Palestinian terrorist organizations and their supporters in the Middle East.

At the same time that it intensified its campaign of terrorism against Israel, the PLO and its supporters continued a war of words against Israel both in the controlled press and other media of the Soviet bloc as well as in the United Nations General Assembly. While the PLO could not destroy the state of Israel by force of arms, it could consistently win political victories in the UN General Assembly in New York. Using the language of human rights, anti-racism, and desires for a “just and lasting peace” the anti-Israeli majority at the UN served as a political complement to the PLO's terrorist attacks against Israel. In each instance of terrorist attack followed by Israel counterattacks on the bases of the Palestinian armed organizations, UN members were offered contrasting facts and interpretations of events. Without fail, the Soviet-bloc–Arab-state–third-world majority in the General Assembly dismissed Israel's assertions and gave the benefit of the doubt to the PLO and its affiliated groups. East Germany contributed to this large international propaganda assault on Israel.

THE POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE ATTACK ON KIRYAT SHMONA, APRIL 11, 1974

On April 11, 1974, Israeli ambassador Yosef Tekoah wrote to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim with details of “the barbaric atrocity committed” that day in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona. “Early this morning,” he wrote, “a group of terrorists crossed the Israel-Lebanese frontier, seized an apartment building in the townlet of Kiryat Shmona, situated in the immediate proximity of the border, massacred 18 of its inhabitants including 8 children and 5 women, and wounded 15 other persons.