Entebbe and the Israeli way of war

50 years ago this month, Israel launched what must still count as one of the most daring operations in all of military history: the raid on Entebbe. Aboard four Hercules C-130 transport planes, around 100 members of the Sayeret Matkal, jeeps, infantry carriers and a black Mercedes that appeared to — but did not — belong to President Idi Amin penetrated an extreme long-distance at extreme low altitude over the Red Sea, avoiding hostile Arab states and Russian radar systems to sweep down the Rift Valley and into the heart of Africa.

Their mission was to liberate the passengers of Air France Flight 139, which had been hijacked after landing in Athens by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and two Germans from the German Revolutionary Cells. This was the latest in a strong of hijackings, directed by Wadie Haddad, who sought to take the conflict with Israel beyond the Middle East through close cooperation with non-Arab militant groups. The list is starling: 2 in 2968 & 1969, 5 in 1970, 3 in 1972, 4 in 1973 and 1 in 1974 (which killed all 88 passengers and crew). Unlike other factions, his network devoted little effort to ideological propaganda or political outreach, focusing instead on spectacular, high-profile operations.

The plane turned south to Africa, where Haddad had made a secure base after had moving out of an increasingly destabilised and war-ravaged Lebanon. After temporarily stopping at Benghazi, the plane eventually landed at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda, where Amin supported them. The hijackers demanded $5m for the airplane and the release of 53 pro-Palestinian prisoners for the safe return of the hostages: if these demands were not met, executions would begin.

The domestic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was immense. Relatives of the hostages stormed his office demanding that the government negotiate their release, which they eventually decided to (whilst concurrently investigating a range of military solutions). But whilst their relief was immediate, a pall fell on the nation: it was felt to be an abdication of Israel’s moral responsibility to its citizens. The public mood hardened still further after the selekzia, a separation of Israeli and Israeli dual-national passengers from the rest of the hostages, which reminded many of the selection procedures of the Nazis which so many Israelis had experienced first-hand.

The public mood hardened still further after the selekzia, a separation of Israeli and Israeli dual-national passengers from the rest of the hostages, which reminded many of the selection procedures of the Nazis which so many Israelis had experienced first-hand

Rabin’s decision bought time, but as discussions ground towards stalemate, there was a developing sense amongst the Cabinet that acceding to the terrorists’ demands would inflict a fatal blow to Israel’s anti-terror campaign. Determination to deploy a military option became unshakeable. The Defence Mininster, Shimon Peres, warned that “if Israel gives way,”I fear a tremendous catastrophe for this country. And when we discuss the lives of the hostages and the danger to their lives, I want you to know I regard them as if they were Israeli soldiers in a war.”

What was fought for at Entebbe, as William Stevenson wrote in his book on the event, “was the right of every Israeli to travel without fear, and ultimately the right of citizens everywhere to make free decisions about where they lived and how they lived.” It worked. After Entebbe, hijackings petered out: there was just one the following year, Lufthansa Flight 181, which was also stormed — though this time by Bundespolizei anti-terrorism unit in Mogadishu. There were just 5 in the following decade.

It is of course an axiom that politicians are deeply shaped by events in their younger years: the unique circumstances of Israels’ founding perhaps made these experiences even more important. Rabin had served in the commando section of the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary group operating in the British Mandate for Palestine, where he would lead a raid on the Atlit detainee camp to free 208 Jewish illegal immigrants the British had detained there. The leader of the political opposition Menachem Begin — who offered Rabin support for negotiations in the absence of alternatives, then swung in behind the military option when one became viable — had been in the Irgun, and had spent time in a Soviet gulag. “If Israel should ever fail to protect her own”, he said, ”she would cease to have meaning.” Following the Yom Kippur War Brigadier General Dan Shomron, who planned and commanded the raid, believed that the world would never let Israel win her security: and that, therefore, there was little point paying attention to the “world opinion”.

Entebbe is now, firmly, part of the inheritance of the current Israeli leadership. Only one soldier died on the mission: Yoni Netanyahu, the brother of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who also served in the Sayeret Matkal). Two years after the raid he returned to Israel to found the Jonathan Netanyahu Anti-Terror Institute, which was devoted to the study of, and fight against, terrorism. It hosted two influential conferences, the first in 1979 and the second in 1984, which saw influential figures like George Bush, George Schultz and Henry Jackson speak. On the eve of the second, Nathanyahu told The Washington Post that the main contribution of the conference, was emphasizing terrorism “is not an abstract problem . . . It’s something being used by governments to attack the democratic world. And what unfortunately was said has become distressingly prophetic. This has become a cancer spreading throughout the world.” The precise implication, Maryam Jamshidi argues, was that “Western countries had to abandon commitments to international law and multilateral, UN-led action and instead use whatever means necessary to annihilate the threat of terrorism.”

The influence of Entebbe, and the scores of other Israeli hostage crises, are worth remembering for the clear line that can be drawn to Israel’s attitude to the recover of the hostages taken on October 7th, and the ongoing Gaza war

The influence of Entebbe, and the scores of other Israeli hostage crises, are worth remembering for the clear line that can be drawn to Israel’s attitude to the recover of the hostages taken on October 7th, and the ongoing Gaza war. This is not to make a moral judgement on those actions, but merely to understand that they are a logical end point for a country that sees Israeli civilians taken hostage as soldiers, and has seen itself protected only by its own muscular defence of its citizenry at home and abroad, often in the face of international condemnation. Its willingness to do whatever it considers necessary to defend itself is now, through historical experience, inextricably linked with what it means to be Israeli. Stevenson’s 90 Minutes at Entebbe has a quote on the opening leaf, told to the author by Yerucham Amitai, Former Deputy Chief of the Israeli Air Forces they flew over the Temple of Solomon in 1970:

“In the end, we may have to choose between action that might pull down the Temple of Humanity itself rather than surrender even a single member of the family to the executioners. Survival in other circumstances is not survival at all. And all of us, whatever our race, won’t be worth a damn if we buy our lives at the cost of our conscience.”