On July 4th, 1976, Israeli commandos launched a bold, miraculous rescue operation with surgical precision. All of the hijackers were killed as were 45 Ugandan soldiers who were guarding the area. You couldn’t have written a better script, nor a more unlikely one. It was the stuff of movies. So much so, that numerous dramatizations and documentaries were made in the following years to reenact and capture this testament of human heroics. It was a fist to the trachea of our enemies. A warning that terror will be met in kind. Unfortunately, the rescue mission wasn’t without its cost. During the rescue, two of the hostages were killed, as was Yonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the military operation (may G-d avenge their blood!) A third hostage, an elderly woman named Dora Bloch who was hospitalized earlier, was later killed by Ugandan soldiers at the orders of an irate Idi Amin.
When Jewish Life Meant Something
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the operation was that it showcased a magnificent expression of ahavat yisroel, love of Jews, to the world. It was an international stage to show the extreme efforts that Israel would take to protect Jewish lives, even if Arab terrorists whisked them off to the Dark Continent.
Once upon a time, Jewish life meant something in Israel. Today, soldiers and civilians alike face imprisonment for killing Arabs who throw stones and boulders at their heads. Soldiers are stabbed in the neck because the “rules of engagement” prohibit them from maintaining a safe radius around their person. An Arab woman can easily hide a crude dagger on her person as she closes the distance and awaits her moment. Anyone who thinks that this country is on the “right path” is a fool. Every week Jews are killed by Arabs, and yet when we clamor for justice against Jew killers, our moronic Israeli President of Israel shares his nonsensical foolishness about Islam. Our leaders are more dovish than ever. Our hands are tied by the government. And the cost is paid in rivers of Jewish blood.
Times have changed. The Jewish backbone has crumbled:
- Once upon a time, Israel protected Jewish lives. To be sure, havlagah was embedded deep into the ideology of the left, yet in practice, self-defense was deemed a natural right. Jews in Israel could obtain a gun license to protect their families from Arab violence. Today, as Jews are exposed to Arab atrocities, the government of Israel increasingly deprives most of the populace of the most basic right of self-defense. The police remain a useless institution, riddled with corruption and incompetence. As the Arab grows stronger, many urban areas are becoming virtual war zones where Jews risk their lives by merely driving through.
- Once upon a time, the IDF was permitted to strike out at our enemies, even when they are more than 2500 miles away in unknown territory. Today, the IDF isn’t permitted to wage a war properly within our own borders, without endangering our own soldiers to save Arab lives. You don’t humanize the enemy. You slaughter them. There are no civilians in a society where children learn the fine art of murdering Jews while soulless mothers smile, clap, and wipe tears of Arab joy over the eventual “martyrdom” of their maturing ghoul.
- Once upon a time, the older brother of our befuddled Prime Minister led a daring raid on Entebbe and paid the ultimate price. The younger brother has forgotten what the older brother knew. He has forgotten who the Arabs are. He has forgotten the principles he insisted upon in his younger years, when he authored a widely read text on fighting terrorism. And every second that Netanyahu fails to slam the door on the culture of lies of the “Oslo Treason” is an egregious insult to his brother’s legacy.
- Once upon a time, the very notion of releasing 50 terrorists, not to mention 500 or 1000, would have constituted an act of treason against the country and the Jewish people. Throughout his career, Netanyahu has repeatedly violated this most sacred principle.
Lessons of Entebbe– “Kill or Get Killed!”
- Never release Arab terrorists! For that matter never imprison Arab terrorists. Gun. Noose. Electric chair. I don’t care how. You kill them. If you need information to save Jewish lives, then you torture them and then kill them! The un-Jewish position of releasing Arab terrorists to save Jewish lives is grotesque, since invariably a thousand more Jews will be killed in the aftermath of such exchanges. The merciful fools haven’t saved a soul. We have seen firsthand how released murderers inevitably return to kill more Jews.
- The UN screams whenever we survive. They prefer that we bleat our death rattles. We need to tune out the voice of anti-Semitism, the way we would an irritating insect. The hell with shameful hasbara which celebrates the virtues of self-restraint. Let them buzz while our enemies bleed. We will continue to breathe.
- When Jews are taken prisoner by Arabs, we have a halachic obligation to save them. To stage a bold rescue attempt no matter the challenges. To gather courage from the fact that we are the Chosen People and that we are beholden to one another.
- When Arabs slaughter Jews, their blood is upon the head of every self-righteous Jew who speaks of peace with these asps, or rebukes the few normal Jews who celebrate the deaths of such fiends, or dares speak of “transfer” which remains the lone solution to the Arab problem. The politicians still don’t get it. The most popular flavors of religious “right-wing” politicians today all believe in some sort of autonomy plan for the Arabs. To even speak of autonomy is as much an obscene concession as is the notion of a fictitious “Palestinian.”
The Legacy of Entebbe