Free Republic

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...

Entebbe Diary by Maj. (Res.) Louis Williams The name "Entebbe" and the operation with which it is associated enjoy a special place in the annals of the ongoing war against terrorism. To the people of Israel, and to many others, it was a declaration that free men need not submit to terrorist blackmail and extortion, no matter how impossible the alternatives may seem. Entebbe Diary is dedicated to the scores of men who flew to Africa and back, and to the hundreds more who, by their unstinting efforts in planning and preparation, made the mission possible, and whose hearts...

Major-General Benjamin (Benny) Peled, who has died aged 74, was the Commander of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) from 1973 to 1977, leading it during the traumatic days of the Yom Kippur War.On October 6 1973 Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously, catching her unprepared and off guard. With war on two fronts - Egyptian troops crossing the Suez Canal, and Syrian tanks rolling into the Golan Heights - and with no reserves mobilised to face the enemy, the task of stopping the Arab invasion was left to the small regular army and the IAF. Defence Minister Moshe Dayan phoned...