43 years ago the Israel Defense Force executed the most miraculous hostage rescue ever. On this Independence Day we should be reminded that Israel is on the front lines of the war on jihad. When Israel fights terror it is protecting America from terror. A strong Israel means a safer America. America must always support Israel.

Remembering History’s Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission: Entebbe, July 4, 1976

Related: Nikki Haley: ‘The better and stronger we make Israel, the safer we make the world’

By Ari Lieberman, FrontPage Mag, July 4, 2019.

How Israel showed the world that the war on terror could be won.

On July 4th, 1976, as America celebrated its Bicentennial, four Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules planes carrying over 100 Jewish passengers, twelve Air France flight personnel, and their Israeli rescuers landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport. The safe landing of civilians and commandos marked the end of a week-long, nightmarish drama that gripped all of Israel.

The saga began on June 27, when a Paris-bound Air France commercial airliner took off from Tel-Aviv. The plane was scheduled for a stopover in Athens. Lax security at Athens International Airport enabled four terrorists with forged passports – two from the notorious West German Baader-Meinhof Gang and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – to board the flight with their guns, grenades and explosives.

Their hijacking adventure set into motion a sequence of events that would reverberate around the world. It would also ultimately serve to further enhance the prestige and reputation of Israel’s vaunted, specialized commando units and intelligences services.

After a brief refueling stopover in Benghazi, Libya, the terrorists flew their commandeered Airbus A-300 to Entebbe airport in Uganda where they were given a hero’s welcome by their mercurial Ugandan host, the cannibalistically-inclined dictator, Idi Amin. In addition to providing them with safe haven, the despotic Amin placed elements of the Ugandan army at the hijackers’ disposal. In addition to the Ugandans, the terrorists’ ranks now swelled to seven, having been joined by three PFLP operatives during the Benghazi stopover.