Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, z'l, commander of the elite IDF special forces unit Sayeret Matkal. He was the only Israeli killed in Operation Entebbe. Benjamin Netanyahu, his younger brother, is the current Prime Minister of Israel.
July 4th is Independence Day.
It is also the 35th anniversary of the Israeli Raid on Entebbe, July 4, 1976, in which the IDF planned and carried out one of the most audacious, innovative, and courageous rescue operations in military history.
To the jihadists America is the Big Satan and Israel is the Little Satan
Thus Israel is the only country in the world—outside America—that truly understands and celebrates the Fourth of July.
My good friend and co-worker, the late Edgar J. Scherick—he joined our Passover seder one year—produced this film. He once told me that of all his distinguished credits, it was this movie he was most proud.
Let us all celebrate freedom.
Here’s the entire Raid on Entebbe, 1977.
And pay particular attention to the “selection scene” where the IslamoNazis separate Jew from non-Jew.
H/T Israel Matzav
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
9 Comments
Thank you for posting this.
I remember seeing this film on TV when it first came out and I was fascinated then.
Now it is a combination of the pleasure of seeing these fine–many gone to their rest–character actors–and the joy of witnessing a dramatization of real heroism!
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At the time, Israel was probably the only country capable and courageous enough to pull off the operation with a minimal loss of life. The U.S. sure wasn’t capable as seen by the Iranian hostage rescue a few years later.
You would think that after Munich terrorist acts like the Entebbe hostages should have brought condemnation and isolation upon the PLO and their supporters. But of course somehow the palestinians kept gaining support from the bleeding heart liberals and people like Leon Klinghofer paid with their life.
The civilized world should have ended the nonsense at Munich but instead they couldn’t wait to get the games started again. What’s a few Jews when Avery Brundage still had medals to give out. As someone with German and Italian ancestors, I had always figured that at least the Germans could be ruthless when it came to law and order. But the authorities in 1972 may as well have been working with the terrorists that day. I bet even the Italians were appalled at their incompetence.
Operations like Entebbe, instead of moving world opinion against the terrorists, were used as evidence by liberals that Israel was so powerful that the palestinians had to use suicide bombers and rockets in Sderot. And today we have a president that sat in church listening to his friend and Jew hating preacher. But Sarah Palin is not competent to be president because she didn’t tell Katie Couric what newspapers she reads.
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Johnny:
On Entebbe and Israel – and Desert One - shortly after the raid the Israelis quietly said that you never mount something like that without a backup plan – It is interesting that in that raid was an impetus for Col Charles Beckworth to form the Delta Force, which had a lot of input from his years as liaison to the British SAS. the SAS was/is highly decentralized with many small groups instead of a massive command structure.
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The thing is (I say as someone of Czech and French ancestry), Germans are actually incapable of ruthlessness, unless you brainwash them; they’re really so nice it’s questionable whether they’re cut out to ever be soldiers. That’s actually why they behaved so badly in wars; they, like the Japanese and to a lesser extent the English (who might be good at navies but always had Irishmen, Scots, Gorkhas, and Sikhs do their land-fighting), really don’t get the distinction between “kill the enemy on the battlefield” and “murder women and children, march Belgian priests in front of your soldiers as a human shield, use rape as a weapon of terror”. Germany dropped the ball in Munich because, just for one example, it was illegal to use military snipers for police operations—because the military is just so darn mean.
It’s important to remember, the militaristic “Germans” were either Prussians (whose ancestors actually spoke a language related to Lithuanian—they weren’t actually German), or people emulating Prussians. Unlike Germans, Prussians were constitutionally suited to war; it’s just that the Kingdom of Prussia was founded by the Hohenzollern clan, who had been a bunch of amoral psychopaths at least since one of them was the last head of the Teutonic Knights. Frederick I Hohenzollern, for instance, found out his son was getting “soft” by learning to play the flute from a friend…so he made the son (the future Frederick II “the Great”) watch, while his father beat that friend to death with said flute. Nice people.
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Reminds me of the old joke of Heaven and Hell:
n Heaven…
the mechanics are German
the chefs are French
the police are British
the lovers are Italian
and everything is organized by the Swiss.
In Hell…
the mechanics are French
the police are German
the chefs are British
the lovers are Swiss
and everything is organized by the Italians.
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I remember the day of that raid like it was yesterday. It electrified the world. And to say it was audacious is an understatement.
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Bill:
I too remember that day. I wept when news of the resue was announced.
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Borrowed from RobandKathy Gandy
The United States flag does not fly because the wind moves past it. The United States flag flies from the last breath of each military member who died protecting it. American soldiers don’t fight because they hate what’s in front of them…they fight because they love what’s behind them. God bless America!!
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Jackie W:
Thanks so much, lovely sentiment—and true.
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