The Legacy of Entebbe, 50 Years On

The Legacy of Entebbe, 50 Years On

The 19th-century French writer Alphonse Karr famously observed that the more things change, the more they stay the same. While not universally true, it aptly describes the predicament of the nation and the people of Israel.

When it comes to Israel, the playbook and the players are always the same: peddling the same accusations and the same lies.

In July 1976, the United Nations Security Council was in uproar. Israel had “flagrantly violated” Uganda’s sovereignty by striking the East African nation in the middle of the night, representatives from several third-world countries claimed. The country’s dictator, Idi Amin, demanded global condemnation for Israel’s “act of aggression.” Days earlier, Israeli airborne commandos had carried out a daring nighttime raid on Uganda’s Entebbe Airport, rescuing 104 hijacked hostages.

Despite all this outrage, the Entebbe Raid, or Operation Thunderbolt, was a daring hostage-rescue mission. On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by terrorists of the Arab-led Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and West German Revolutionary Cells (RZ), and diverted to Entebbe. These Marxist terrorists were in cahoots with the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, a self-styled anti-colonialist, genocidal maniac, and convert to Islam.

German hijackers separated the 94 Israeli and Jewish passengers from the rest, who were allowed to leave. The Air France pilot and 11 crew members courageously chose to stay with the hostages. Operating under the protection of Idi Amin, terrorists began making demands. They wanted a $5 million ransom and the release of dozens of convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel, West Germany, and other nations.

Refusing to yield to terrorist demands, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres, after long deliberations, authorized the long-range rescue. On the evening of July 3, around 100 commandos of Sayeret Matkal special forces boarded four C-130 Hercules transport planes. In the middle of the night, they landed undetected and raided the terminal, killing the hijackers and freeing 102 hostages.

The mission’s only military casualty was the 30-year-old commander Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, the older brother of current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Many books have been written about the valiant operation, my favorite being “90 Minutes at Entebbe” by William Stevenson. Several movies have been produced, including Raid on Entebbe (1977), starring Charles Bronson, and the more recent rendering 7 Days in Entebbe (2018).

Despite well-researched books and first-hand accounts, new details about the Entebbe Raid continue to emerge. Ahead of the 50th anniversary, Israel released classified documents and reports related to the military operation. “Marking 50 years since Operation Entebbe, Israel State Archives releases thousands of previously-classified documents, including protocols, recordings, and correspondence detailing the deliberations that led to the historic hostage rescue mission,” the Israel National News reported last week.

50 years on, nothing much has changed. Palestinians are very much in the hostage-taking business, while their Western defender remain just as passionate about justifying their deranged actions.

This shameful legacy lives on, as leftists beatify the mass murderer and terrorism supporter, Idi Amin. In his 2025 book, Mahmood Mamdani, Columbia professor and father of the current New York mayor, presented a “forgiving view” of the East African Tyrant, depicting him as “an anti-colonial moderniser,” The Guardian notes. Idi Amin’s “challenge,” Professor Mamdani wrote, was to “make Black rule meaningful by nurturing Black millionaires in place of wealthy Asians,” referring to his drive to expel 80,000 subjects of British Indian origin.

And Israel hasn’t changed either. In response to the October 7 attacks, the small nation of Israel successfully mobilized nearly 300,000 willing and able reservists, a feat unimaginable for any modern European state. Germany faces mass strikes over the mere prospect of conscription. According to a 2025 poll, only 16% of Germans were certain that they would take up arms in the face of a foreign invasion. Poll after poll, the pattern holds true across Europe, with few exceptions.

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