Idi Amin’s Revenge
I have a special relationship with Idi Amin.
When I was in law school, I appointed myself the Arts Editor (a post that hadn’t existed before, to the best of my recollection) of our student newspaper, The Gavel.
It allowed me free entry to Boston’s theaters and events. Somewhat guiltily, I decided to review films and report on functions that had a legal connection. Among other things, I reviewed Woody’s Allen’s “The Front” (the one in which a poignant Zero Mostel playing a HUAC beleaguered comedian, sails out of a hotel window), attended a Free Speech conference and fundraiser for porn star, Harry Reems (real name Herbert John Streicher) and wrote about “Idi Amin Dada”, a documentary that exposed the corpulent, despotic, Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who reportedly was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his compatriots.
The film opened my eyes to real time tyrants living in the world thirty years after the end of the Holocaust.
In 1976, Idi Amin, having aligned himself with a number of terrorist regimes, including Libya, approved an Arab terrorist plan to hijack an Air France jet and agreed to let it land at the Entebbe airport in Uganda. On June 27, 1976 the Arabs and members of the German Bader Meinhof gang boarded the jet, carrying 248 passengers and 12 crew members, at the Athens airport and took over the plane. When it landed at Entebbe the non-Jewish passengers were released and 106 Jewish passengers were held hostage. Heroically, the Air France crew chose to stay with the Jewish passengers.
Once Israel realized that no other country was coming to the aid of the hostages, they acted. Defense Minister, Shimon Peres said “If we give in to the hijackers’ demands and release terrorists, everyone will understand us, but no one will respect us. If on the other hand, we conduct a military operation to free the hostages, it is possible that no one will understand us-but everyone will respect us.”
Israel had about 48 hours to draw up plans, obtain planes, vehicles, personnel, Ugandan military uniforms and license plates, practice and fly 2,500 miles to Entebbe across several hostile nations, and oh, obtain Cabinet approval. They did it all.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Entebbe rescue will be celebrated on July 4th.
Yes, that July 4th. America’s Independence Day, its 250th.
Yesterday, at Palm Beach Synagogue in Palm Beach, FL we heard two speakers with direct ties to Entebbe.
One, Rami Sherman, then 23 years old, had been Operations Officer of Sayeret Makal unit involved in the planning and execution of the Entebbe Rescue. The other, Moshe Peress, aged 26, had been a medical student passenger.
Sherman told us facts that we had never known or forgotten. For example, when Israelis decided to take a car resembling Idi Amin’s black Mercedes automobile with them to Entebbe, they couldn’t find a black Mercedes in Israel. Finally, they were told there was one in a garage somewhere in Israel. When they arrived to take possession of the vehicle, it turned out it was white and had no tires. They found a tire shop to supply the tires and brought the car to an auto body facility to re-paint it.
He reminded us that the planes, with no seats, no toilet facilities, flew 100 feet over the water to avoid radar and they did it for hours.
Dr. Peres spoke of his quiet faith, once they reached Entebbe airport that they would be rescued.
Idi Amin was deposed in 1979 and died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2003.
Now, New York City has a Ugandan born Shia Muslim mayor who has turned his back on the city’s nearly one million Jews, refused to protect Jewish houses of worship and schools, boycotted the recent Israel Day parade and said he would arrest Netanyahu for “war crimes” if he came to NYC.
It’s almost as if …..