Even as the nonreligious commandos acknowledged the obvious Divine intervention in the Entebbe rescue 40 years ago no one embarked on the mission believing they could rely on the Hand of Heaven that their very blunders would turn into miracles. Why then did they go ahead with this wild scheme that had little chance of success?
Forty years ago Israel sent some of its best soldiers out on a crazy daring mission whose predicted success was dubious at best. As the media focuses attention on the 40th anniversary of the famous Entebbe rescue (on America’s bicentennial — July 4 1976) let us look at it from a different angle.
The rescue of 102 hostages held in Uganda by terrorist hijackers could easily have been a disaster instead of the stunning feat it was. In terms of military logistics the chances of success were actually slim yet the overall situation called for taking that risk. Most of the hostages were Jewish and Israeli and all the prestige of the Jewish state was at stake.
Many of us are old enough to remember Operation Thunderbolt as it was called by the military men who conceived the plan and the sensation it caused all over the world. A band of breakaway terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine teamed up with German allies from the far-left Baader-Meinhof Gang. The group took over an Air France passenger jet and after releasing some non-Jewish passengers took the rest captive and hijacked the plane to Uganda whose troops were in cahoots with the terrorists.
