Free Republic

JULY 4, 1976 ENTEBBE, UGANDA – Led by Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, crack Israeli commandos race from their airplanes covered by the midnight darkness. Methodically, they approach a non-descript airline terminal, burst inside, killing the stunned terrorists. Helpless and shocked, 103 hostages lift their heads and gratefully weep at the mesmerizing sight of their saviors. As the alarms begin to sound, the Israeli soldiers strike with surgical precision and speed — a lightning bolt of controlled, finely rehearsed fury. It is all over in a few minutes. Terrorists lay dead. The hostages rush out to board the transport planes waiting...

In less than three decades Israel has gone from being a country that frees hostages to one that frees terrorists This past week the 27th anniversary of Operation Thunderbolt, the IDF's daring 1976 rescue of Jewish hostages held at Entebbe, Uganda, came and went virtually unnoticed, receiving little or no attention in the Israeli and international press. No accounts were published of the tense days that followed the hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of an airliner carrying dozens of Jews and Israelis, nor were interviews aired with any of those who participated in the heroic Israeli military raid, or those whom...