After Entebbe: Showdown in New York

After the Israeli commandos' daring rescue of the skyjacking hostages, the Entebbe drama shifted late last week to the United Nations in New York. An African demand for Security Council condemnation of Israel for "aggression" against Uganda in the airport raid had promised one of the most stirring U.N. showdowns in years, and there was every sign that that promise would be fulfilled. The Council chamber was packed with diplomats, newsmen and spectators late last week when Uganda's Foreign Minister Juma Oris Abdalla rose to open the debate, which he did with a lengthy indictment of Jerusalem for "barbarism and banditry" coupled with a demand for full compensation for the damages Uganda suffered in the attack.

Later in the evening, it was Israel's Ambassador Chaim Herzog's turn, and as he rose to speak, the chamber fell deathly silent. Israel would not consider itself on the defensive in the debate, Herzog began. "I am in no way sitting in the dock as the accused party," he said. Instead, he continued, "I stand here as an accuser [of] this rotten, corrupt, brutal, cynical, bloodthirsty monster of international terrorism and all those who support it in one way or the other, whether by commission or omission." The nations that should be on trial, he said, were those "who have collaborated with the terrorists and who have aided and abetted them." Israel was "proud" of the Entebbe raid, not only because it had saved the lives of 104 hostages but also because it had demonstrated "to the world that there is an alternative to surrender to terrorism and to blackmail."

Herzog's tough and moving address set the tone of the arguments that the U.S. and other delegations would be making as the debate continued this week: that charges of Israeli aggression against Uganda, which actively aided the skyjackers, were preposterous, that the real issue facing the U.N. was what to do about international terrorism.

The Israelis had prepared their appearance at the Security Council almost as thoroughly as their raid at Entebbe. And that, it was clear as further details of the operation came out, was meticulous indeed. The preparations, TIME's David Halevy reported from Jerusalem last week, began almost as soon as the Air France Airbus, which had been seized on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris, landed in Uganda. Within 48 hours, the Mossad, Israel's CIA, had slipped three black undercover agents into Entebbe and two into Kampala, the nearby capital. They sent Jerusalem a constant flow of intelligence, including photographs, about what the terrorists were doing and how the Ugandan army was deployed. With this information, the Israelis, who helped build the airport a decade ago, constructed a full-scale updated model of Entebbe to train commandos for the raid.

A senior Mossad officer was dispatched to persuade Kenyan officials to allow Israeli planes to land at Nairobi Airport in an emergency. The Kenyans were receptive. In January, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada had helped terrorists get into Kenya for an unsuccessful attempt to destroy an Israeli El Al plane during a takeoff from Nairobi; then the following month, after coming across some old British colonial maps, Amin claimed that huge chunks of Kenya actually belonged to Uganda. In return for Kenyan help, the Israelis promised to cripple Amin's Soviet-equipped air force. To spare Nairobi the wrath of its neighbors, Israeli officials have stressed that they "forced themselves" on Nairobi Airport. For the same reason, the Kenyans have officially condemned the Israeli raid.

No Dynamite. Until very late in the week before the raid, the Israelis hoped to negotiate the release of the hostages, 93 Israelis and passengers with Jewish-sounding names and twelve Air France crew members. The skyjackers threatened to kill all of them unless Israel freed 40 terrorists from its prisons and West Germany, France, Switzerland and Kenya released an additional 13.

But as the negotiations bogged down, sentiment for the commando rescue mounted in the Israeli Cabinet. Finally Premier Yitzhak Rabin acquiesced--but only after the men from Mossad had assured him that the skyjackers had not planted dynamite around the Airbus and the terminal's lounge, where the hostages were being held. Rabin warned, however, that if the raid failed, "it might cause the collapse of this Cabinet."

Rabin's go-ahead came with less than 24 hours remaining before the skyjackers' Sunday afternoon deadline. In addition to the three unmarked C-130 Hercules transports that carried the commandos to Entebbe, the operation involved two more C-130s loaded with fuel and reinforcements, two Boeing 707s (one used as a flying headquarters, the other as a hospital with 33 doctors and two surgical cabins), eight jet fighters as escorts, three tankers to refuel the fighters. Another C-130 fitted out as a radio transmission station kept the war room in Tel Aviv in touch with the raiders at Entebbe.

The Mossad operatives cut Entebbe's communication links with the outside world and "decommissioned" the control tower, including the airfield's radar. When the three unmarked C-130s landed, the 160 troops aboard them deployed in four groups. The first rushed the terminal where the hostages were guarded by ten skyjackers and about 40 Ugandan soldiers; barking through loudspeakers, the rescuers told the hostages to hit the floor. The Israelis then killed seven skyjackers (three escaped) and about 20 Ugandans; the Israeli commander of the group, Lieut. Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed by a Ugandan soldier. The second group, blazing away from two armored personnel carriers, held back the rest of the confused Ugandans and destroyed eleven Ugandan air force MIGs with antitank missiles. The third group waited in reserve, while the fourth unsuccessfully tried to get the airfield's fuel pumps working. Because of this failure, the Israelis were not able to refuel and retrieve the Air France plane as they had planned. Instead, they had to refuel their own C-130s at Nairobi on the flight back to Israel.

What was self-styled Field Marshal Amin doing during the raid? As the C130s approached Entebbe, an old acquaintance of his, Colonel Baruch Bar-Lev, a former Israeli military attache in Uganda, phoned him from Tel Aviv. By the time Amin and Bar-Lev hung up 20 minutes later, the Israelis' 50-minute raid was well under way.

Since the raid, diplomats in Kampala say, the mercurial Ugandan leader has been furiously searching for scapegoats for the Entebbe disaster. One possible victim of Amin's fury may have been the lone hostage the Israeli commandos left behind: Dora Bloch, 74, who at the time of the rescue was in a Kampala hospital being treated after some food had become stuck in her throat. At week's end, ominously, Ugandan authorities were claiming that they knew nothing of her whereabouts.

Amin, who is scarcely a model statesman (see box), will be a central figure in the Security Council debate, even though he will not be present. For this reason, some of the Africans who originally demanded the session have admitted privately that the proceedings were likely to be "very painful." The Israelis felt they would have little difficulty in indicting Amin as a partner in the skyjacking--if not in the planning, then certainly in the developments after the Airbus landed at Entebbe. This, says Jerusalem, is what gave Israel the right to intrude on Ugandan territory to save the hostages.

Based on information obtained from the freed hostages and by the Mossad, and largely confirmed by diplomats in Kampala and officials in West European countries, Israel's Herzog argued, among other points, that:

> A skyjacker knew in advance that Entebbe was the plane's destination.

> Upon landing at Entebbe, one of the skyjackers exclaimed: "Everything is O.K. The army is at the airport."

> Amin warmly embraced the skyjackers.

> The terrorists came and went as if they were at home, with cars driven by Ugandans.

> For the first 24 hours at Entebbe, the Ugandans guarded the hostages. When the skyjackers returned refreshed, the Ugandan soldiers supplied them with submachine guns.

The U.S. planned to veto any Security Council resolution branding Israel as an aggressor. Washington and Jerusalem hope, however, that most delegates will agree to broaden the Council's agenda to discuss terrorism in general. Possibly (but by no means probably) the debate might lead the U.N. finally to take some action against international terrorism. Conceivably, if the U.N. had ever taken any kind of stand against the jet-age "freedom fighters" who are ready and able to raise havoc and seize hostages anywhere to avenge their own local grievances, the skyjacking might not have happened and the Entebbe drama would never have taken place.

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