by Shimon Peres
The decision was unanimous. Operation Entebbe was a go.
•••
We sat in utter silence in my office, the control room of the Ministry of Defense. Rabin chewed on a cigarette. I fiddled with a pen. From the moment the planes had taken off, they had been ordered to maintain complete radio silence unless a problem arose. Now we had gathered, along with a small group of staff and advisors, to follow the operation’s progress via secure radio equipment. As the planes flew over the Red Sea and into Ethiopian airspace, as they banked across Lake Victoria and prepared for their final descent, we heard nothing. The hush bred incredible tension, even as it suggested that things were proceeding as planned.
At 11:03 P.M. there was a staccato of static: the lead plane had landed safely. Then another seven minutes of silence. During that time, the cars would have exited the first plane and begun preparing to make their way in formation to the old terminal.
At 11:10 P.M., Dan Shomron’s voice interrupted the quiet. “Everything is all right,” he said. “Will report later.”
Eight agonizing minutes later, we heard the code “Low Tide,” indicating that all the planes had landed safely.
“Everything is going well,” Shomron said again two minutes later. “You will soon receive a full report.”
“Palestine.” The code word meant the attack on the old terminal had begun.
For the next twelve minutes, we heard nothing, and our imaginations filled the void. We knew that Israeli commandos were engaged in a gunfight with terrorists and foreign forces more than two thousand miles away, but nothing more.
Finally, there was a break in the silence: “Jefferson,” which signaled that the evacuation of the hostages was commencing. “Move everything to Galila,” which meant they were transporting the hostages to the Hercules for boarding. We were not out of harm’s way yet, but it seemed the plan was still proceeding as intended.
Then, suddenly, we heard the code words we’d been dreading: “Almond Grove,” a call for medical attention to the force under Yoni’s command. We heard that there were two casualties, but we didn’t know the extent of the injuries. For the next few moments, we imagined the worst—that the unit had been attacked by an unexpected force, that our intelligence had been incorrect and we were only beginning to pay the price.
But just as our minds were traveling to their darkest depths, we heard the most significant code: “Mount Carmel.” All the planes were in the air, the hostages safely aboard.
There was an eruption of cheers as apprehension turned to celebration. We had tried to grasp for the impossible, and now we held it in our hands. Just after midnight, Gur called me in my office to fill us in on the details on the operation.
He told us that it had taken fifty-five minutes and that all of the terrorists had been killed. We had rescued all but four of the hostages. One, Dora Bloch, had been gravely ill and, we later learned, murdered at the hospital in Uganda. The other three—Jean-Jacques Mimouni, Pasco Cohen, and Ida Borochovitch—had misunderstood the IDF soldiers’ command to lie down during the firefight and had been caught tragically in the crossfire. We also confirmed that two soldiers had been wounded, but the extent of their injuries and their identities were yet unknown.
Rabin returned to his office, and I summoned Burka to my own. I wanted him to place a call to Idi Amin, one that suggested that the president had cooperated with us on the attack. It was the best way to undermine Amin’s credibility with the terrorists—a chance to sever his relationship with our enemies. Burka dialed Amin’s private line while I stood next to him and listened.
“President Amin speaking.”
“Thank you, sir,” Burka said slyly. “I want to thank you for your cooperation. Thank you very much, sir.”
Amin was confused. “You know you did not succeed,” he replied.
“The cooperation did not succeed?” Burka asked. “Why?”
“What has happened?” he asked frantically. “Can you tell me?”
“No, I don’t know. I was asked just to thank you for your cooperation. My friends who have close connections with the government asked me to say that to you.”
I called Rabin and told him about the conversation with Amin. He burst out with laughter and invited me to come down to his office to celebrate. Menachem Begin, the opposition leader and future prime minister, was with Rabin when I entered, sharing in the joy of the moment. “The Entebbe Operation,” he would later say, “will heal the nation of the trauma of the Yom Kippur War.” And indeed, it would.
Operation Entebbe was, in all its glory, a moment of pure inspiration in the midst of a darkening time. It sent a message to the world—about Israel’s bravery, its cunning, its refusal to surrender to terrorists, and its commitment to universal values. It would come to be known as one of the most audacious operations in military history, teaching the world what those of us in the Defense Ministry already knew: that the IDF was one of the most courageous armies in the world. The warriors who had participated in the mission became heroes, celebrities at home and abroad.
It was also a critical moment of healing, returning a feeling of safety and security that had been lost in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. And it sent a message to Jewish people all over the world, that the nation had a state that could protect them.
Rabin and I decided that we would release a simple statement to the press, which we drafted together. It was only one sentence long. “IDF forces have tonight rescued the hostages and aircrew from Entebbe Airport.”
By three o’clock in the morning on July 4, I returned to my office and, at last, planted myself on the couch, ready to catch the first sleep I’d had in days. But despite my exhaustion, I lay there restlessly, imagining the hostages in the belly of the Hercules—what they must have been thinking and feeling. When I closed my eyes, I thought about the extraordinary fearlessness of the IDF, as well as the members of the “Fantasy Council,” men who had exercised every ounce of creativity to develop the plans, even when they were certain my optimism was misplaced. Still, they never dismissed the importance—and possibility—of a mission. Without people of such character, no rescue would have ever been mounted.
I heard a rustle at the door, and opened my eyes to see Gur standing in front of me. The last time I saw him he was smiling and cheering. Now his face was sullen and sunken. It was the face of a man who had learned something tragic, but couldn’t find the words to share it.
“What is it?” I asked, as I got to my feet.
“Shimon,” he said meekly, “Yoni’s gone. He was struck by a bullet from a sniper in the control tower. It pierced his heart.”
I turned away from Gur and faced the wall. In all of the tension of the week, I had steeled myself, holding my emotions tightly in place. I had no words for Gur, nor did he have any more for me. Instead, he left my office and I burst into tears.
The next morning, Rabin and I went to the airfield to greet the rescued hostages and the returning commandoes, who had been led by Muki Betzer after Yoni’s death. There was such relief in the eyes of the passengers, who had spent so much time in the depths of terror, with no way of knowing we were coming to save them. Their grace and gratitude were so meaningful, such a poignant reminder of the operation’s human dimension. I watched as families reunited—children embracing their mothers, husbands held tight by their wives. I witnessed such beautiful moments, as incomprehensible worry turned into uninhibited joy. And yet, within, I was stricken with sadness. Yoni’s loss was a reminder of the operation’s human dimension, too.
“What burdens didn’t we load on Yoni’s and his comrades’ shoulders?” I would say the next day in my eulogy for our fallen hero. “The most dangerous of the IDF’s tasks and the most daring of its operations; the actions that were farthest from home and the closest to the enemy; the darkness of night and the solitude of the fighter; the taking of risks, over and over again, in times of peace and in times of war.
“Yonatan was a commander of valor. . . .
He overcame his enemies by his courage. He conquered his friends’ hearts by the wisdom of his own heart. He didn’t fear danger and victories didn’t make him vain. . . . By falling he caused an entire nation to raise her head high.”
•••
What did you consider when you made your decision regarding Entebbe?”
In the forty years since the operation, I have been asked that question in many ways by many people. But never was it more poignant than on April 24, 1980, when it was asked of me in the White House by President Jimmy Carter.
I had been in Washington that week, then a leader of the Israeli opposition. President Carter’s office had scheduled an early-morning meeting with me. When I arrived, the secretary of state and the vice president accompanied me to the Oval Office, but Carter asked for them to wait outside.
It had been about 170 days since a group of Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats and staff workers hostage. President Carter had asked his national security advisor—and my former dinner companion—Zbigniew Brzezinski to develop a hostage rescue plan. After repeated failed attempts at negotiation with the Iranians, Carter was preparing for military action.
“What would you do, Mr. Peres?” he asked. “What did you consider with regard to Entebbe?”
I told him that if there was a realistic possibility of a military option, I would take it. Our problem was that we had so little information, we were forced to work in the dark. But even when we got the information we needed, there was still a great risk. But this is true of every operation, I said. So in the end, we decided to take the chance, and we found virtue in risk.
President Carter thanked me for my advice and we parted ways. What I didn’t yet know, but would soon learn, was that he had already launched a daring mission earlier that morning. Having stared down the same barrel, he had made the same choice. But unlike Operation Entebbe, the results were disastrous. Some of the helicopters suffered technical failures, with one crashing into their Hercules, killing eight troops and forcing the mission to be aborted. It was a terrible tragedy.
The next afternoon, I received a call from Barbara Walters, the well-known American news anchor. “Have you heard the news?” she asked.
“Surely, I heard the news. Everybody heard the news,” I acknowledged.
“What’s your opinion about it?”
“I think President Carter made the right decision. If a helicopter hits an airplane, what can you do? You cannot be a president and a soldier at the same time. I think he was courageous, and it’s unfortunate that the operation failed. But this is a risk you have in every operation.”
That, in its simplest terms, is what I fundamentally believe. It is only after we see failure that we can know if we misjudged the risk. Of course historians will compare Operation Entebbe’s success and Carter’s failed attempt. But one must also avoid the temptation to overlearn specific tactical lessons born out of failure or success. I believe that the decision to mount a rescue in Uganda was the right one. Had it failed, the decision would still have been correct. This is one of the hardest things for some leaders to understand: a decision can be right even if it leads to failure. That isn’t to suggest that the American hostage rescue failed simply as a matter of bad luck. Militaries must do the extensive preparation and planning required to execute such a complicated mission. But while it is possible—and important—to mitigate the likelihood of failure, leaders cannot do away with risk entirely. In 2011, the careful planning of President Barack Obama’s raid against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan did not prevent one of the U.S. helicopters from falling out of the sky. The operation succeeded anyway, almost miraculously, and in so doing earned its place beside Entebbe. But it is wrong to let the success of the mission come to define the courage of the president’s decision. After all, he had to summon that courage before the outcome could be known.
Given the thin line between success and failure, knowing that what works in one circumstance might be disastrous in another, what do such operations have to teach us? It’s certainly not that daring military action is or isn’t the better course; it’s that daring thinking about one’s options is always the better course.
History hinges on successes and failures. But reaching for the former to avoid the latter does not depend on our capacity to hope. It depends on our capacity to think clearly, to choose wisely, and ultimately, to make the moral choice—even in the face of danger. The “Fantasy Council” succeeded because it established an arena for tireless curiosity and radical suggestion. If leaders demand allegiance without encouraging creativity and outside inspiration, the odds of failure vastly increase. This is one of the great lessons of Entebbe, but it is enveloped in an even larger one: without emboldening people to envisage the unlikely, we increase risk rather than diminish it.
CHAPTER 5
BUILDING THE START-UP NATION
The early Jewish pioneers arrived in the land of Israel with nothing, only to find a place that offered almost nothing in return. They found that the land—mostly a disobliging, stony soil—was unusually challenging for growing food. Half of it, the Negev, in the south, was desert. Water shortages were so chronic that they dried up the beds of the Jordan River and threatened to empty the Sea of Galilee. The more fertile north was plagued by malaria. It was a holy place, but they would find it was not an oily place—one of the few stretches of land in the region without deposits of petroleum. The early pioneers faced a staggering challenge without expertise or experience. The ending of their story wasn’t fated to be happy.
And yet today, nearly seventy years after the founding of the state, Israel is not a hopeless desert of permanent poverty—it is a technological miracle, a hub of scientific enterprise that is envied by the great economies of the world. In a country with a little more than eight million people, we have become home to more than six thousand start-ups, the highest density found anywhere in the world.
How did this happen? How did we start up a nation from nothing and transform it into a nation of start-ups? The answer lies in a paradox: having nothing was at once our greatest challenge and our greatest blessing of all. Without natural resources, our hopes were tied to our own creativity. The choice the pioneers faced was stark: succeed or starve. Indeed, the decision to move forward—despite the sheer improbability of success—was not an elective one; it was a matter of necessity. As precarious as our fate in Israel may have seemed, it remained what it always was: our best and only true hope.
So they fought. They planted fields and groves, and beat the desert back into retreat. They dug wells in the sand. When the soil failed to produce and they went to bed hungry, they vowed to find a solution. They started a research institute in 1921, where they could study seeds and soil and irrigation and livestock, where they could search for new ways to eke better crops from the land. Findings made their way to the kibbutzim right away, where they could be put into practice, improved, and refined.
Much of the efforts were focused on mere subsistence. To battle the food shortage, researchers developed seeds and planted crops that could last longer in storage—which is how the cherry tomato got its start. To battle the water shortage, they developed new recycling techniques, until nearly half of their crops were grown with water already once used. They invented a process called drip irrigation, which could water a field with up to 70 percent less water without harming the crops. At the time, they didn’t imagine that it would become one of the world’s most important agricultural innovations, that it would be exported and replicated to help feed the whole world. They simply knew that we were depending on them, that their work was feeding our families while serving our cause.
It was this same spirit that waves of new immigrants brought with them when they returned to the homeland. They had arrived in Israel having lost nearly everything: their homes, their communities, their families, their whole way of life. Returning home to Israel was not merely an act of desperation, but one of courage an
d bravery. It meant fighting through chaos, traveling great distances under a cloud of uncertainty. They arrived with little by way of possessions, but with a sense of confidence and a daring spirit, a focus not on what they lost, but on what they might gain. They rejected hierarchy openly and assertively, as though the chutzpah of Israel was already hardwired into their DNA. They also brought skills and experience and ingenuity. In the late 1980s, for example, Soviet Jews made up only 2 percent of the Soviet population, but by one estimate, made up 20 percent of its engineers and 30 percent of its doctors. So, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev finally opened his borders in 1989, more than a million Jews immigrated to Israel, tens of thousands of whom were brimming with expertise and a yearning to build something new. At every stage of our development, from the era of the pioneers to the era of the entrepreneurs, immigration replenished our communities and helped us imagine anew.
I was once asked by the founder of a young start-up what I thought was the most important lesson I’d learned about innovation through the years. “It is a complicated question,” I admitted, “but I will give you a simple answer. Israel was born so Jews could finally cultivate their land with their own hands. But the most important thing to remember is that we depended more upon our brain than our muscle. We learned that the treasures hidden in ourselves are far greater than anything that can be found in the ground.”
It was a lesson I learned again and again. At Ben-Shemen we didn’t just learn how to till the fields; we learned new methods being developed in real time to yield more fruits from our efforts. At Alumot, the work of cultivating continued, but the learning never ceased. There were new and hopeful discoveries happening all the time, which we shared from kibbutz to kibbutz, and practiced until we reached mastery.
