digest
Introduction
The 70s were known as the golden age of international terrorism and during this decade, a new method became popular among Palestinian terrorists: hostage taking. Probably the most famous of these terrorist attacks occurred in 1976, when Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked Air France flight 139 flying from Israel with 248 passengers and landed it in Entebbe, Uganda. Israel, racing against the ticking clock, executed a daring, top-secret rescue mission, titled Operation Thunderbolt that drew the admiration of the entire world. So, what happened behind the scenes in the hours and days following the hijacking? How did Israel execute a rescue mission that took on mythical proportions, and became a case study that commandos, including the Navy Seals sent to kill Bin Laden, would study decades later?
Yasser Arafat and hostage-taking as political ploy
In the late sixties, Yasser Arafat, who was the leader of the PLO or Palestine Liberation Organization, had come to the realization that hostage-taking was quite an effective way of not only extorting demands in exchange for lives, but of drawing international media attention to the Palestinian cause. Now, before we go on it's important to point out that other nationalist groups also contributed to the seventies being termed the golden age of terrorism: Ireland, Argentina, Italy. But, being that this is a series on Israeli history, we've got to talk about Palestinian terrorism, which seemed to take it to a whole new level of intensity and frequency. Between 1968 and 1977, Palestinian factions carried out or attempted 29 hostage-taking operations. In 1970, three planes were hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in the same day in what became known as the Dawson Field hijackings. In 1972, the PLO splinter cell called Black September took the Israeli team hostage at the Munich Olympics. In 1974, terrorists took 22 Israeli school children hostage and in 1975, the PLO took over the Savoy hotel in Tel Aviv taking the guests and staff hostage. Three of these events ended in disaster, and we'll touch on them later.
Background of the hostage situation
So, back to Entebbe. On June 27th, 1976, two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and two Germans from the Leftist Revolutionary Cells, boarded Air France flight 139 flying from Israel during a short stopover in Athens. Four minutes after taking off, the Palestinian-German terrorists pulled out guns and grenades, stormed the cockpit, and hijacked the plane. They landed the plane in Libya to refuel, and then flew to Entebbe, Uganda. In Entebbe, the four hijackers were joined by at least four others, and were supported by the forces of the brutal and erratic Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who had given himself the modest title "His Excellency, President For Life, Field Marshal, Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and the Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular." He also considered himself to be the King of Scotland. So, not the most stable of minds. Idi Amin welcomed the hostages warmly, later assuring them that he was their friend but that he would have to kill them all if Israel didn't comply with the hijackers' demands.
Hijackers' demands
What were those demands? Well, in addition to a ransom of five million dollars, the equivalent of 22 million dollars today, they demanded the release of 53 terrorists, 40 of whom were in Israeli prisons. Israel was given three days to comply, and then the terrorists would begin to kill the hostages on July 1st at 2 o'clock, sharp. Even more troubling, on June 29th the terrorists separated the Israeli passengers and those who were identifiably Jewish from the rest of the hostages. They released the rest of the passengers, keeping the 98 remaining Jews prisoner. Now, this was only thirty years after the Holocaust, a trauma that was deeply embedded in Jewish and Israeli psyches. Many of the hostages were either Holocaust survivors, or the children of survivors. So, you can imagine the feelings those orders given in a brusque German accent triggered among the hostages. But they remained calm, knowing that if they made a wrong move they could be executed at any moment. Air France pilot Michel Bacos, who remained with the hostages along with his flight crew, despite being given permission to leave, said that the Israeli passengers were confident their country would not forsake them.
Israeli considerations over negotiating
So, what was going on back at home in Israel? To negotiate or not to negotiate? That was the question. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided that if the IDF could not come up with a viable military option, he would have to negotiate with the terrorists in order to save lives. Minister of Defense Shimon Peres balked at this, arguing that, "If we give in to the hijackers' demands, everyone will understand us, but no one will respect us. If, on the other hand, we conduct a military operation to free hostages, it is possible that no one will understand us, but everyone will respect us." See, this wasn't just a hostage crisis, this was what you could call a never-again moment. Especially after the Jewish passengers were separated from the others. Israel was being tested. Could it live up to its promise to protect Jews worldwide after the world had turned its back on them during the Holocaust? Not only were the lives of the hostages at stake, but Israel's raison d'etre was also on the line. And when push came to shove, as they approached the deadline, the IDF had not come up with a feasible military option.
Israel agrees to negotiate
So, Rabin with the grudging support of Peres and with the emphatic and very unexpected support of Menachem Begin, head of the opposition, sent the message that they would negotiate. The newspapers the next day ran the headline, "Israel Surrenders." But then, something unexpected happened. The terrorists extended the deadline to July 4th. And with this extra time, Rabin ordered Peres and the IDF chief of staff Motta Gur to resume looking into military options.
Israel instead executes risky military rescue plan
By the next morning, they had a plan. It was as daring as it was innovative and it was not without risks. Rabin, a former Army Chief of Staff, understanding the full weight of his responsibility, even prepared a letter of resignation in the event that the mission would fail. And it was not unrealistic to expect severe losses. Israel had recently faced devastating failures in two other hostage rescue attempts. In 1974, 105 schoolchildren were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists and 22 of them, along with four adults, were murdered by the terrorists when the IDF stormed the school. In 1975, when terrorists took control of the Savoy hotel in Tel Aviv, eight civilians and three soldiers were killed in a failed rescue attempt. It was a real possibility that the same would happen in Entebbe. But on the other hand, the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis, when Israel was not permitted by Germany to send in a rescue team, also ended in the murder of the hostages. So, despite the risks, Rabin gave the order to initiate Operation Thunderbolt. Minutes later, Hercules transport planes took off on perhaps the boldest military rescue mission in modern history. They headed for Entebbe, 2500 miles and eight hours away, skirting enemy countries Egypt and Somalia while flying dangerously low to avoid radar detection, at times no more than 35 feet off the ground. They carried 100 members of the IDF's elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal, headed by Yoni Netanyahu (the older brother of future Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu) and his second-in-command Muki Betser. The pair had fought side by side in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and had teamed up in some of Israel's most famous counter-terrorism operations. Betser had spent four months in Uganda a few years back, as an IDF officer training the Ugandan military. His knowledge of the airport's layout and the vehicle of choice for Ugandan senior military officials, a classy black Mercedes, was instrumental in the planning and execution of the mission. Saturday night, July 3rd, 11PM, the Israelis landed in Entebbe in the cover of darkness. Yoni, Muki and a few of their men rolled out of the plane in a black Mercedes flying two little Ugandan flags on the hood. Idi Amin was about to pay the hostages a visit. The planes left their engines running while the Mercedes and two Land Rovers drove to the old airport terminal where the hostages were being held. The Israeli commandos, led by Yoni with his famous charge, "Follow me," opened fire on the Ugandan soldiers and the terrorists, broke into the terminal shouting in Hebrew and rushed the 102 hostages to the waiting planes. Only 53 minutes after landing, they took off homeward bound for Israel.
Casualties (including Yoni Netanyahu)
Tragically though, five people were killed during the operation, including Yoni Netanyahu who was shot at the start of the assault, after which Muki Betser took command. Operation Thunderbolt was renamed Operation Yonatan in honor of its fallen leader.
One of the proudest moments of Israeli history
The Entebbe rescue was one of the proudest and most legendary moments in Israeli history, right up there with the establishment of the state and the victory of the Six-Day War. Entebbe reaffirmed Israelis' confidence in their security, intelligence and self-reliance after the devastating losses of the Yom Kippur War in '73 and the massacre of the 13 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in '72. The raid also won Israel international respect, both for not giving into terrorism and for the impressive operation itself.
Palestinian abandon tactic of airplane hijacking
After Entebbe, terrorists had to consider a new factor in their calculations: that Israel's reach was not limited by distance or location. Airplane hijackings were soon abandoned as a method of Palestinian terrorism. The success of the operation was the high point in global attitudes towards Israel, which turned out to be a turning point as well, because a few years later things went downhill when Israel, against worldwide opposition, invaded Lebanon in the controversial 1982 Lebanon War.
Entebbe restored pride among Jews worldwide
Among Jews worldwide, Entebbe went beyond restoring confidence, it took on a mythical status restoring a sense of shared destiny and fate among all Jews around the world. Israel did not only show that it would defend itself but made a strong statement that all Jews, no matter where they were in the world, had a country to protect them. The story of Entebbe reaffirmed the nation's best values: self-sacrifice, loyalty, the value of human life and unity. Within Israel, the rescue brought left and right together, and the memory of the rescue is still cherished by all sides of the political spectrum, something that is altogether rare in Israeli society today.