AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
Jonathan Feldstein – From Entebbe to Gaza City & I am still losing sleep
From Entebbe to Gaza City
On June 27, 1976, Captain Michel Bacos was piloting Air France Flight 139 with 246 passengers from Athens to Paris. Minutes into the flight, two Palestinian Arab and two German terrorists hijacked the flight that originated in Tel Aviv hours earlier. Bacos was forced at gunpoint to re-route the flight to Benghazi, Libya for refueling, and then to Entebbe, Uganda.
In Entebbe, the four terrorists were welcomed by Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin, with Ugandan troops providing support for the terrorists. Two days later, the terrorists forced all Israeli and Jewish passengers into a separate room. Eventually, they released the 148 non-Jewish passengers. Remarkably, Captain Bacos and his crew remained with the Jewish hostages. On July 4, the hostages were freed following a bold Israeli commando raid known as Operation Entebbe. Captain Bacos took a two-week vacation and requested that his first flight back be to Israel.
I was thinking about the Entebbe hijacking and raid recently in the context of Hamas kidnapping and taking hostage more than 240 people during their October 7 assault and massacre on Israel. Hamas is a different kind of Palestinian Arab terror group, an Islamist one, but the goals and tactics remain the same: the death and suffering of as many Israelis as possible toward the objective of Israel’s complete annihilation.
In 1976, terrorists held more than 100 hostages thousands of kilometers away. Today, terrorists hold some 240 hostages, much closer, but in harder-to-reach underground bunkers and likely not altogether. A rescue will be more difficult, but Israel is committed to bringing ALL the hostages home.
The hostages are citizens of at least 27 countries including Israelis. As Israel faces mounting pressure for a cease-fire, terrorists are playing the same game trying to separate the non-Israeli and non-Jewish hostages, holding out as bait to release 2, 10, or maybe 15 of the non-Israelis.
The tactic of separating hostages based on their nationality or religion is the same, but must not be allowed to stand this time. ALL the hostages must be rescued. If Israel lets the world be played by the terrorists, in no time the world will stop caring about the Israeli and Jewish hostages. How do we know? Because it’s already started. And sadly, despite the passage of time, the more time passes the more things are really the same.
One should not be surprised that in the aftermath of the hostage rescue in Entebbe, then-UN Secretary-General (and former Nazi) Kurt Waldheim said the raid was “a serious violation of the sovereignty of a member state of the United Nations.”
Taking a page out of the antisemite UN Secretary General handbook, its current occupant, António Guterres, decried the recent violence saying it “does not come in a vacuum” but “grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year-long occupation and no political end in sight.” Basically, Guterres justified Hamas’ terror the same way Nazi-Waldheim criticized Israel for rescuing its hostages then.
In 1976, Captain Bacos received France’s National Order of the Legion of Honour, and his crew also was recognized for their heroism. Then, with little exception, the West widely supported Israel’s operation. France, (West) Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States offered significant praise. Then US Secretary of State Kissinger did criticize Israel for using American hardware and weapons, but that was only revealed later.
Ironically, today, one of the ones leading the pack pressuring Israel for a cease-fire under any circumstances is French President Emanuel Macron. Macron flew to Israel in the days after Hamas’ massacre to show solidarity. But the French president has changed his tune. Though he says France knows what terrorism means, he’s playing to the vast terror base in his backyard, something that France has allowed to fester to increasingly dangerous levels.
Macron pivoted from his early support in a recent BBC interview, claiming that there was “no justification” for the bombing, and pontificating that a ceasefire would benefit Israel. “There is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire, which will allow to protect … all civilians having nothing to do with terrorists. Today, civilians are bombed – de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
I suspect that none of Macron’s predecessors ever criticized the Allies’ bombing of Dresden and other German cities, without which Le France would be speaking German today.
France has a legacy of retreat so maybe Macron can be excused. But as pressure grows on Israel from liberated Europe, it’s also painful to see the US heating up its rhetoric. Most recently, current Secretary of State Blinken, told reporters in India, “Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks.” It’s not yet the parroting of Kissinger’s criticism, but it’s a slippery slope, especially with the Hamas wing of his party claiming that they won’t support President Biden for re-election. Will Biden/Blinken heed the Hamas wing of their party to stop providing Israel with weapons to defend itself?
If comments like those of Blinken and Macron are not first pointed at Hamas, repeatedly and clearly without any qualifications for their October 7 massacre and using their own civilians as human shields, they are simply not credible. But being credible no longer matters when Pallywood mixes up its main characters (terrorists) with the extras (civilians), putting the latter at risk no matter the suffering.
In order to push back on the mounting pressure, an invisible but increasingly strong front against Israel from the West, the Genesis 123 Foundation has launched an international petition to call upon the US, Red Cross, G7, and all countries whose citizens are hostages in Gaza to end pressure for a cease-fire and make the first priority to bring home ALL the hostages.
It’s time for all Jews and Christians and all people of conscience everywhere to stand with Israel to defeat Hamas and bring home the hostages. Pandering to terrorists through a cease-fire, ransom, or any other appeasement will just mean more death and suffering. This will continue in Israel for sure, but is just a moment away from the violent protests against Jews in the West turning on their host countries too.
Through the end of his life, Michel Bacos was recognized as a hero. In 2019, Israel’s national anthem was played at his funeral where he was honored by the mayor of Nice, “Michel, bravely refusing to give in to anti-Semitism and barbarism, did honor to France. The love of France and the defense of liberties have marked his destiny.”
Today is the world’s Bacos moment. Will you stand with Israel to defend itself and bring home the hostages, or appease the terrorists and allow more death and suffering?
I am still losing sleep
Numbness. Fear. Inability to focus. Loss of control.
My son called yesterday to let me know that the army would be taking away his phone soon, and that he and his unit were going into Gaza. It’s something for which he and hundreds of reservists with him had trained for and anticipated since they were called up on that horrible day, 10/7.
He called me, then he called my wife. Then he called his wife of four months.
He’s the fourth child. I knew that no matter how old they get, no matter that they may marry and start their own families, I knew that parenting doesn’t ever end. It’s a full-time job, from day one until the end. But this was a page of the parenting playbook for which I remained unprepared. Not during his mandatory service and not since 10/7, even if I knew it was inevitable.
We raised him to be a proud Jew, and Israeli. A combat soldier. Nevertheless, its something for which I don’t know I could have prepared.
When he was six, Yosef Goodman, the eldest brother of a friend of his died in a parachuting accident. After Yosef’s funeral, he came to us and declared, “Don’t worry Ima and Abba. When I am in the army, I won’t jump out of planes.” Then he became a paratrooper. We lined the side of the road to witness his first jump, albeit a milestone in the completion of his basic training more than any military practicality. But paratroopers are really infantry units. Now, he’s going to do what he’s really been trained for.
He called me first, maybe because it was easier for him, not to deal with fear and tears that might be inevitable with his mother, his wife, his siblings, and the rest of our family.
Maybe he called me first for me to be prepared for the phone call(s) from them to try to be a stable anchor of the family even if my tears are not visible, and even if my fear is no less. Maybe not showing fear was what he needed. Maybe because Abba begins with A, aleph. Then again so does Ima. Maybe none of this matters and today we are just parents of a soldier in Gaza. Defending our people. Losing sleep.
Yes, there’s fear, but there’s pride. I wish we didn’t have to defend ourselves this way. I wish he were beginning his university in his first home with his new wife. Instead, he’s in Gaza. I am grateful that we brought him and his siblings to Israel almost 20 years ago. Words of his sisters the week he received his military call-up papers also echo in my mind. I suggested that he should go into an intelligence unit because he’s analytical (like my father for whom he’s named) and it would be a great start to his career.
Not missing a beat, the siblings who often bicker came to their younger brother’s defense, criticizing me with the simple message, “We don’t serve the country to get something out of it,” and “He’s going to be a great combat soldier like our friends are.” They’re right.
My father lived through Israel’s war of independence as a child but never was “in” a war.
The last time anyone in my family was “in” a war was WWII, but not as fighters. Rather as victims. My great-grandparents and numerous uncles, aunts, and cousins who my father never knew were all massacred by the Nazis and their willing Polish neighbors and accomplices.
Today we have our own army and can defend ourselves, even at a huge price. And it has been huge. There’ve been nearly 30,000 victims of war and terror since my father was a child. In the initial War of Independence (which I believe we are still fighting) from 1947-1949, Israel lost a full one percent of its population. Even 30,000 out of nearly 10 million today is a huge loss.
I have taken solace to the idea that while God promised to restore us to the Land, and He has, He never promised it was going to be easy. I am sure that in all the battles we fought that are chronicled Biblically, in none of them were Jews not afraid, for themselves, and their families. That’s human. We are today as well. But we have the resolve to win, no matter the cost. We must.
Golda Meir once said we have a secret weapon, we have nowhere else to go. She was right.
But Golda was wrong when she said that we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children but not for making our children kill their children. I do not and will not forgive the Arabs (Islamists) for killing our children. I fear for my son and his safety. I fear that he may likely have to do what he is trained for, to kill others. Our cause is righteous. There is no ambiguity. None. Anyone who doubts that is an immoral, misinformed, antisemite. Sorry, that’s the truth. Jewish blood cannot ever be spilled freely. But I also fear for my son taking another life. Not because he can’t or shouldn’t. Just because that’s something that no matter how correct it is in the context of battle, it’s not something I want him to have to live with.
I lose sleep about my son going into Gaza. I lose sleep, imagining the suffering of the hostages and their families. I lose sleep over the grief of the families who lost loved ones in the most unspeakable ways on 10/7, and who have not been able to grieve properly because their nation is at war. I lose sleep for the young women home alone with children, some too young to understand, and some who understand too well, about where their fathers are and if and when they will come back. Too many haven’t.
And now I’m losing sleep over the intense pressure on Israel for a ceasefire, as if the West is opening another invisible front in the war, but no less deadly. Pressuring Israel into a cease-fire, while separating out and keeping the Israeli and Jewish hostages in Gaza indefinitely is immoral. Israel cannot and must not accept that. It also will be a sure recipe to increase loss of life, not diminish it. The only place pressure must be put is on Hamas and all their cohort of evil Islamist terrorists starting in Iran. The West’s failure to grasp and deal with this will lead to their own peril.
The hostages must ALL be released, together. Hamas must not be allowed to divide the West into those who are concerned for the well-being of a few of their own nationals, at the expense of the Jews.
Israel must not have its hands tied to complete the goal of decimating Hamas and freeing the hostages, because negotiation with Hamas to free some will mean giving them a lifeline to kidnap and kill more in the future. Please sign the petition to help Israel resist this pressure, so the world powers doing so will back down, and let Israel finish the job, even at a terrible cost.
Oh, and about my son. It seems that because of pressure, Israel is not increasing the military campaign against Hamas that he was to be part of. He went back to base, for now, safely. But I am still losing sleep.
