#BringBackOurGirls: Operation Entebbe and Why Our Government May Not Be Sincere

On the 4^th of July 1976, commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The mission, which has been tagged Operation Entebbe, was carried out to rescue Israeli hostages who had been kidnapped a week earlier by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells who had hijacked an Air France plane with 248 passengers which was going from Athens to Paris. After hijacking the plane, the terrorists flew the plane to Entebbe and were personally welcomed by Idi Amin. The hijackers separated the Israelis and Jews from the larger group and forced them into another room. The non-Israelis were later released while over 100 Israelis and Jews and the non-Jewish pilot were held hostage. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met.

The Israeli Mossad built an accurate picture of the whereabouts of the hostages, the number of terrorists, and the involvement of Ugandan troops from the released hostages in Paris. While planning the military operation the IDF erected a partial replica of the airport terminal with the help of civilians who had helped build the original. After days of planning, Israel dispatched four Hercules C-130H cargo planes carrying 100–200 soldiers and escorted by Phantom jet fighters. The aircrafts secretly flew to Entebbe Airport at midnight without being detected by Entebbe air traffic control. During the operation which lasted 90 minutes, all seven of the militants were killed, three hostages and one Israeli soldier was killed. Jean-Jacques Maimoni, a 19-year-old French immigrant to Israel who chose to identify himself as an Israeli Jew to the hijackers even though he also had a French passport—stood up and was killed when Israeli company commander Muki Betzer and another soldier mistook him for a hijacker and fired at him. Another hostage, Pasco Cohen, 52, the manager of an Israeli medical insurance fund, was also fatally wounded by gunfire from the commandos. In addition, a third hostage, 56-year-old Ida Borochovitch, a Russian Jew who had emigrated to Israel, was killed in the crossfire. The only Israeli commando killed in the operation, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, elder brother of former Israeli Prime Minister, was shot in the chest bu a Ugandan sniper, when the assault team was putting the passengers in their aircraft.

If Israel can fly past many countries to rescue Israelis held hostage in a heavily guarded airport, isn’t it surprising that Nigeria’s security forces have been unable to rescue hostages who are being held in a forest on Nigerian soil? I am not an intelligence or security expert but I think it is easier to rescue hostages being held in the open than hostages being held in a building because the assault force can attack the camp from all sides, including the air at once. I believe a surprise attack will catch the abductors unaware that they will not have time to harm the girls. That is my layman submission. So when the Chief of Defence Staff came out to announce that the military knows where the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram are but will not attempt a rescue, I find it difficult to believe that Nigerian forces know where these girls are. Is the government saying that there has been no movement in and out of Boko Haram’s camp in Sambisa? Those heavy artillery behind Shekau in his videos cannot move around without soldiers who are looking for him and his acolytes noticing. Have the terrorists not been receiving food supplies? And if truly they have not been getting food supplies, then they must be physically weak already.

I think the government is hiding something. I think our government does not know what to do. I think our government may even be misleading the foreign experts who have come to help secure the release of these girls. Are we sure Abubakar Shekau does not have a direct line to President Jonathan? We are not even sure what to think.

Is it not a pity that the values of the majority of those in government in Nigeria are different from those of government officials of some other nations? But I want to call on the government to tell us the true state of things with these girls because whether they do or not, the truth will eventually be known. Please read the statement of the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations after the raid on Entebbe and then ask yourself if our government shares the same values:

“…we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.”

Have you seen the mindset of a government that cherishes human life? Can you say the same about our government?