The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership

by Avner, Yehuda

  An Air France plane, Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris, has been hijacked after taking off from a stopover in Athens.

  Rabin leaned forward to frown over the papers in front of him as if he was studying their contents, but he was, in fact, desperately trying to decide what to do. Not since the Six-Day War had he been smitten with such a sudden blow of anxiety. Finally, he turned the note over and scribbled on its back:

  Freuka – find out: 1) How many Israelis are on board. 2) How many hijackers are on board. 3) Where the plane is heading.

  Rabin then banged his gavel to silence a minister who was working himself up over the price of bread, and informed his cabinet of the shocking news. Adjourning the meeting, he asked Foreign Minister Yigal Allon, Defense Minister Shimon Peres, Transport Minister Gad Yaakobi, Justice Minister Chaim Zadok, and Minister without Portfolio Yisrael Galilee to meet him forthwith in the conference room downstairs, to consider a course of action.

  On his way down he told Yaakobi to contact Ben-Gurion Airport to go on instant and full alert. “The hijackers might want to do another Sabena,” he said.

  He was referring to an incident in May of 1972 when a passenger aircraft of the Belgian-owned Sabena airline was hijacked during a flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv. It landed at Ben-Gurion airport and the hijackers demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian terrorists, otherwise they would blow up the plane together with its passengers. The next day Israeli commandos successfully stormed the aircraft.

  “The only thing we know for sure right now,” said Rabin, opening the emergency ministerial meeting, “is that the hijacked plane is Air France. What exactly is the legal status of passengers on board that plane?”

  He was addressing Minister of Justice Chaim Zadok, a corpulent, round-shouldered, middle-aged gentleman who possessed an encyclopedic legal mind.

  “By law, the passengers are under French sovereign protection,” he answered authoritatively. “The French government is responsible for the fate of them all.”

  “Yigal” – this to Foreign Minister Allon – “have your people inform the French Government, and tell them we’re issuing a public statement to that effect. Ask Paris to keep us informed of their actions.” To me, he said, “Prepare a draft of the statement.”

  As I began to scribble, Allon rose to leave the room, and was almost out of the door when Zadok called after him, “And tell them they must make no distinction between the Israeli passengers and the rest.”

  “That goes without saying,” muttered Allon, slightly huffed.

  Now Freuka came barging in with a fresh note, which Rabin read out loud:

  There are 230 passengers on board, 83 of them Israeli, and 12 crew members. The Libyans have allowed the plane to land at Benghazi.

  “So now at least we know where the passengers are,” said the prime minister, lighting a cigarette, his face a frown. “But there are three crucial things we still don’t know. We don’t know whether Benghazi will be their final stop. We don’t know who the hijackers are. And we don’t know what their demands are.”

  For the next half hour the ministers mulled over these three unknowns, until a secretary entered and passed a note to Allon. “Aha, it’s from the French Ambassador,” he said, and he read:

  The government of France wishes to inform the government of Israel that the French government bears full responsibility for the safety of all the passengers without distinction on Air France flight 139, and shall keep the government of Israel apprised of its actions in this regard.

  “That is satisfactory,” said Zadok, and for lack of fresh information, and in the absence of anything useful more to say, the prime minister adjourned the meeting, asking everyone to stay close to a phone.

  It rang in the late afternoon, and the committee reconvened early that evening. Rabin, now once again every bit the hard-nosed commander he used to be, ran his eyes up and down a dossier in front of him, and said, “Here is the new information. The plane was seven hours on the ground at Benghazi, for refueling. One passenger, a pregnant woman, was released. The plane took off and the terrorists requested permission to land at Khartoum. Permission was not granted, despite the fact that Sudan is a haven for Palestinian terrorists. We have no idea where the plane is heading now. Meanwhile, Ben-Gurion Airport is on the highest alert. As for the identity of the hijackers, it seems there are four – two Arabs from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and two Germans from a terrorist splinter group calling itself the ‘Revolutionary Cells.’ That’s as much as we know.”

  An anxious exchange followed which added nothing to the sum total of knowledge or ideas, so Rabin brought the meeting to a close. That night he fell into a woolly sleep until jerked blinking back into reality by the shrill ring of his bedside telephone:

  “Who is this?”

  “Freuka.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four in the morning. Sorry for waking you up. The plane has landed in Entebbe, Uganda.”

  Rabin, instantly alert, said, “Better there than an Arab country. We know the Ugandan President, Idi Amin.”

  “Didn’t he do his parachute training here?”

  “He did. And during the heyday of Golda Meir’s African aid program quite a few of our specialists worked in Uganda. Some should know him personally so, hopefully, we can straighten this thing out soon. Try and find out who knows him. Any word yet of the hijackers’ demands?”

  “None.”

  “Convene a meeting first thing.”

  “Shall do. Try and get back to sleep.”

  “Shall do.”

  The next day was Tuesday 29 June, and at 8:30 in the morning a somewhat bleary-eyed and slouched Rabin reported the new facts to the committee. Hardly had the ministers absorbed what he was saying when Freuka’s assistant came rushing in with a note. The general quickly ran his eyes over it and instantly passed it on to the prime minister who, after a single glance, said, “This is what we’ve been waiting for. The hijackers have broadcast their demands over Ugandan radio.”

  He paused to study the page and absorb its full meaning, and then shared its contents in a slow and deliberate manner with the men around him. They sat with a too-well-controlled steadiness as if to conceal their uneasiness.

  “In return for the hostages,” the prime minister said, “the hijackers want the release of terrorists – they call them freedom fighters – imprisoned in five countries: forty from us, six from West Germany, five from Kenya, one from Switzerland, and one from France. They’ve issued an ultimatum. Within forty-eight hours the released terrorists are to be flown to Entebbe. Those freed by us are to be transported by Air France; the other countries can decide on their own mode of transport.”

  “And if not?” asked Yisrael Galilee in his characteristic solid and phlegmatic way. “What happens if they are not freed?”

  Yisrael Galilee had the white hair of an Einstein, the stocky build of a kibbutznik, the shrewdness of an entrepreneur, and the veiled eyes of a Svengali. The reason he was a minister without portfolio was because he did not need one. He was Rabin’s closest political confidante, having also had the ear of virtually every prime minister before him.

  “If the terrorists are not freed,” answered Rabin, his voice grim, “they threaten to begin killing the hostages as of two o’clock Thursday afternoon, July the first. That is the day after tomorrow.”

  The group emitted a collective gasp. The first to break the silence was Defense Minister Shimon Peres, who delivered an impassioned address on the implications of capitulation to terrorist blackmail.

  Rabin turned to look at Peres with contempt. In his memoirs he would revile Peres as an “inveterate schemer,” one who would stop at nothing to advance his own ambitions. Now he stared back at Peres with a gaze that said, ‘Say what you will, I’m in charge,’ and cut him short with a sardonic, “Before the Defense Minister sermonizes any further I suggest we adjourn to think the matter through, with all its implications. We’ll meet again a
t five thirty this afternoon and, hopefully, come up with some ideas.”

  Rabin promptly called a meeting of his personal staff and opened it by letting off steam about what he regarded as Peres’ self-serving homilies. He then asked for a report on the attempts to persuade Idi Amin to intercede on behalf of the passengers, and what he learned caused him to snarl and to say with a bitter smile, “Nothing will surprise me about what that man Amin is capable of. He runs his country like a personal fiefdom. He probably has his own fish to fry in this mess, in cahoots with the terrorists.”

  To Freuka he said he wanted the IDF chief of staff, General Mordechai (Motta) Gur, to come to the 5:30 meeting, and to me he said he wanted another brief for the foreign media emphasizing, again, France’s responsibility.

  “Why do you need the chief of staff?” asked Freuka. “You have something in mind for him?”

  He answered, “I want to know what the IDF thinks about this whole matter. I don’t have the slightest doubt that Peres’ pontifications about not surrendering to terrorist blackmail are for the record only, so that he’ll be able to claim later that he was in favor of military action from the start. The problem is his rhetoric is so persuasive he believes it himself.”

  The prime minister opened the 5:30 meeting with a direct question to the chief of staff: “Motta, does the IDF have any possible way to rescue the hostages with a military operation?”

  Peres, irate, intervened: “There has been no consideration of the matter in the defense establishment. I haven’t discussed it yet with the chief of staff.”

  “What?” spluttered Rabin, the veins on his forehead seeming ready to pop. “Fifty-three hours after we learn of the hijacking you have not yet consulted the chief of staff on the possibility of using military means to rescue the hostages?” His fury was palpable. “Motta,” he repeated, staring sharply at the general, his voice crisp and commanding, “do you have a military plan, yes or no? If you do have a military plan, that will be our top preference. But remember, any operation has to provide for a way of bringing the hostages back. It won’t be good enough just to eliminate the terrorists. We have to be able to bring our people home.”

  Again, Peres was about to say something, but Rabin forestalled him, insisting that Motta Gur answer his question.

  “When I received your message to attend this meeting,” replied the general, a hefty parachutist who had led the assault to free the Old City in the Six-Day War, “I assumed it was to seek my advice on a military option. Consequently, before coming here I ordered the chief of operations to start a preliminary examination to see whether an operation is feasible, and if so, at what cost. A major problem is our lack of reliable information on the attitude of Idi Amin. If the Ugandans cooperate with us our chances for a successful operation would be that much greater.”

  “Obviously,” said Rabin, and then, to the whole table, “but the reports we are receiving about Amin are not encouraging. The point is that, as of this moment, there is no concrete military solution, so we shall have to…” – he paused, as if hesitant to express his next thought – “…consider negotiating with the terrorist hijackers for the release of the hostages.”

  Peres promptly rose and left the room, followed by General Gur, presumably to speed back to the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv to see what military plan they could come up with, if at all. The rest of the committee engaged in a fretful discussion about the frightening thought of attempting to rescue so many hostages, thousands of miles away in the heart of Africa, and the unthinkable alternative of negotiating with the killers for the release of their killers in exchange for innocents.

  Later that evening, over a drink in the privacy of his room – the prime minister was drinking and smoking more heavily now – Rabin confided his inner thoughts with these words: “When it comes to negotiating with terrorists, I long ago made a decision of principle, well before I became prime minister, that if a situation were ever to arise when terrorists would be holding our people hostage on foreign soil and we were faced with an ultimatum either to free killers in our custody or let our own people be killed, I would, in the absence of a military option, give in to the terrorists. I would free killers to save our people. So I say now, if the defense minister and the chief of staff cannot come up with a credible military plan, I intend to negotiate with the terrorists. I would never be able to look a mother in the eye if her hostage soldier or child, or whoever it was, was murdered because of a refusal to negotiate, or because of a botched operation.”47

  On the following day – Wednesday 30 June – Rabin opened the next ministerial committee meeting with this chilling news:

  “The terrorists have carried out a selection. They have separated the Jews from the non-Jews. There are ninety-eight Jews. The non-Jews have been released. The Jewish hostages are threatened with execution. There is now absolutely no doubt that Idi Amin is eager to ingratiate himself with the Arabs and is fully collaborating with the terrorists. The ultimatum expires in less than twenty-four hours. So, again, I ask the chief of staff – Motta, do you have a military plan?”

  “We are looking at three possible options,” answered the general. “One is to launch a seaborne attack on the airport from Lake Victoria; the second is to induce the hijackers to transact an exchange here in Israel, and then jump them; and the third is to drop parachutists over Entebbe.”

  There was a silent pause. “Are any of these plans operational?” asked the prime minister, his face cold, hard-pinched. “Can you recommend any one of them to the government?”

  “No.”

  “In that case,” said Rabin with alacrity, “since the terrorist ultimatum is scheduled to run out at two p.m. tomorrow, I intend to propose to the full cabinet that we negotiate with the hijackers for the release of the hostages. We will negotiate through the French. If we are unable to rescue them by force we have no moral right to abandon them. We must exchange them for terrorists held here in our jails in Israel. Our negotiations will be in earnest, not a tactical ruse to gain time. And we will keep our side of any deal we strike.”

  “I object,” countered Peres.

  “I’m sure you do,” muttered Rabin between his teeth, but this time Peres was not to be silenced.

  “We have never agreed in the past to free prisoners who have murdered innocent civilians,” he thundered. “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, depending, of course” – this in a whisper – “on the outcome of the operation.”

  Rabin, glowering, decanted his unrestrained rage: “For God’s sake, Shimon, our problem at this moment is not more of your heroic rhetoric. If you have a better proposal, let’s hear it. What do you suggest? You know as well as I do that the relatives of the hostages are stalking us day and night. They are beside themselves with fear, clamoring for us to make an exchange, and for good reason. What do they say? They say that Israel freed terrorists after the Yom Kippur War in exchange for the bodies of dead soldiers, so how can we refuse to free terrorists in exchange for living people, our own people, their loved ones, when their lives are in imminent danger?”

  Peres, features frozen, said nothing, and when it came to the vote he raised his hand together with the rest of his morose colleagues to negotiate for the release of the hostages though the auspices of the French government.48

  The next morning, with hardly more than a few hours to spare before the executions were to begin, the prime minister reported the facts to the full cabinet which, likewise, voted unanimously to open negotiations through the French. Said Rabin as he brought the meeting to a close, “It has to be understood that the IDF will continue to seek a military option, but this in no way detracts from the earnestness of the decision we have just taken to negotiate.”

  Then, pale-faced, he strode into an adjacent room, wher
e members of the prestigious Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee (composed primarily of non-ministerial leaders of the major parties, among them Menachem Begin), were waiting to hear his report. “Gentlemen,” he said tensely, “the cabinet has just made the decision to open negotiations with the terrorists to exchange killers in our hands for the Jewish hostages.”

  Glances were exchanged as uneasiness and trepidation pervaded the atmosphere. An agonizing argument broke out which Rabin cut short by saying, “We simply have no choice. We have no credible military option. The terrorists’ ultimatum expires in a few hours time, at two o’clock, after which they will begin executing a Jew every half hour.”

  “Mr. Prime Minister, may I request a brief interval for consultations with my colleagues?” said Menachem Begin.

  Rabin looked at his watch. “Yes, but please be quick. Time is running out. We have yet to relay our position to the French.”

  The leader of the opposition rose quickly and departed for an adjacent room, together with a number of his party members. There he said in a voice that rang with the command of one who had lived a life of hard choices, “Who knows better than me what it means to take a stand on a matter of principle? One of my principles is not to negotiate with terrorists. But when Jewish lives are at stake every principle must go by the board. We must rescue our brethren from execution. Therefore, I propose we inform the prime minister that we of the Likud opposition share in the public responsibility for the decision to open negotiations with the terrorists.”

  Nobody demurred, and within minutes they were back.

  “Mr. Prime Minister,” said Begin with enormous gravitas, “this is not a partisan matter for debate between the coalition and the opposition. It is a national issue of the highest order. We, the opposition, shall support any decision the government adopts to save the lives of Jews. And we shall make our decision known to the public.”