Free Republic

As a dual American and an Israeli, July 4 has always had a dual special meaning. That is, since 1976, America’s bicentennial. Like many American children, the year leading up to and during the bicentennial was a period of sharing national pride in all that America stood for, and its history. Growing up in a town with a famous revolutionary war battlefield, the reenactment of that battle made things extra vivid. As an Israeli, it is remarkable to me that after 200 years, the U.S. was able to celebrate its independence by reenacting the war in which it fought to...

Forty-five years ago, a small force of Israeli sol­diers flew south over the Red Sea, skim­ming the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of a string of ene­my states and res­cu­ing near­ly all of the 105 hostages at Entebbe, Uganda. The sto­ry is well-known. But what few peo­ple real­ize is that those sol­diers, many of whom served in the elite Say­eret Matkal recon­nais­sance unit (or the ​“Unit,” as the out­fit is known), met with the prime min­is­ter and defense min­is­ter and, after being dri­ven back to their base, sim­ply ate, show­ered, con­grat­u­lat­ed one anoth­er on a job well done, and went home. The post-mis­sion...