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The Raid on Entebbe and Israel’s Fateful Choice

Jan. 25 2016

When, in June 1976, Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked a flight from Israel to Paris and diverted it to the Ugandan city of Entebbe, holding the hundreds of passengers hostage there, Israel launched a daring and successful raid to free the captives. The historian Saul David tells this story in detail in a new book. At the center of the narrative, writes Alan Furst in his review, is Israel’s risky decision not to reward the terrorists with a prisoner exchange:

The gravely difficult choice facing the Israelis was this: do we give in to the hijackers’ demands and, in exchange for the hostages, free terrorists captured in previous attacks, even those who have Jewish “blood on their hands”? Or do we initiate a rapidly planned and daring operation that may turn out to be a disastrous failure? Both options are explored in depth, with the defense minister, Shimon Peres, supporting the military operation and the prime minister, Yitzḥak Rabin, undecided as the 48-hour deadline set by the terrorists approaches. David’s exploration of the various conflicts generates a high level of drama and tension for the reader, even though the outcome is known. This is the achievement of a masterly, first-rate historian.

Read more at New York Times

More about: History & Ideas, Israel & Zionism, Palestinian terror, PFLP, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic