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On June 27, 1976, Captain Michel Bacos was piloting Air France Flight 139 with 246 passengers from Athens to Paris. Minutes into the flight, two Palestinian Arab and two German terrorists hijacked the flight that originated in Tel Aviv hours earlier. Bacos was forced at gunpoint to re-route the flight to Benghazi, Libya, for refueling and then to Entebbe, Uganda.
In Entebbe, the four terrorists were welcomed by Uganda’s dictator, Idi Amin, with Ugandan troops providing support for the terrorists. Two days later, the terrorists forced all Israeli and Jewish passengers into a separate room. Eventually, they released the 148 non-Jewish passengers. Remarkably, Captain Bacos and his crew remained with the Jewish hostages. On July 4, the hostages were freed following a bold Israeli commando raid known as Operation Entebbe. Captain Bacos took a two-week vacation and requested that his first flight back be to Israel.
I was thinking about the Entebbe hijacking and raid recently in the context of Hamas kidnapping and taking hostage more than 240 people during their October 7 assault and massacre in Israel. Hamas is a different kind of Palestinian Arab terror group, an Islamist one. Still, the goals and tactics remain the same: the death and suffering of as many Israelis as possible toward the objective of Israel’s complete annihilation.
In 1976, terrorists held more than 100 hostages thousands of kilometers away. Today, terrorists hold some 240 hostages, much closer, but harder to reach underground bunkers and likely not altogether. A rescue will be more difficult, but Israel is committed to bringing ALL the hostages home.
The hostages are citizens of at least 27 countries, including Israelis. As Israel faces mounting pressure for a cease-fire, terrorists are playing the same game, trying to separate the non-Israeli and non-Jewish hostages, holding out as bait to release 2, 10, or maybe 15 of the non-Israelis.
The tactic of separating hostages based on their nationality or religion is the same, but they must not be allowed to stand this time. ALL the hostages must be rescued. If Israel lets the terrorists play the world, in no time, the world will stop caring about the Israeli and Jewish hostages. How do we know? Because it’s already started. And sadly, despite the passage of time, the more time passes, the more things are really the same.
One should not be surprised that in the aftermath of the hostage rescue in Entebbe, then-UN Secretary General (and former Nazi) Kurt Waldheim said the raid was “a serious violation of the sovereignty of a member state of the United Nations.”
Taking a page out of the antisemite UN Secretary-General handbook, its current occupant, António Guterres, decried the recent violence, saying it “does not come in a vacuum” but “grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year-long occupation and no political end in sight.” Basically, Guterres justified Hama’s terror the same way Nazi-Waldheim criticized Israel for rescuing its hostages.
In 1976, Captain Bacos received France’s National Order of the Legion of Honour, and his crew also was recognized for their heroism. Then, with little exception, the West widely supported Israel’s operation. France, (West) Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States offered significant praise. Then, US Secretary of State Kissinger criticized Israel for using American hardware and weapons, but that was only revealed later.
Ironically, today, one of the ones leading the pack pressuring Israel for a cease-fire under any circumstances is French President Emanuel Macron. Macron flew to Israel in the days after Hamas’ massacre to show solidarity. But the French president has changed his tune. Though he says France knows what terrorism means, he’s clearly playing to the vast terror base in his own backyard, something that France has allowed to fester to increasingly dangerous levels.
Macron pivoted from his early support in a recent BBC interview, claiming that there was “no justification” for the bombing and pontificating that a ceasefire would benefit Israel. “There is no other solution than first a humanitarian pause, going to a ceasefire, which will allow us to protect … all civilians having nothing to do with terrorists. Today, civilians are bombed – de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So, there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
I suspect that none of Macron’s predecessors ever criticized the Allies bombing of Dresden and other German cities, without which Le France would be speaking German today.
France has a legacy of retreat, so maybe Macron can be excused. But as pressure grows on Israel from liberated Europe, it’s also painful to see the US heating up its rhetoric. Most recently, current Secretary of State Blinken told reporters in India, “Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks.” It’s not yet the parroting of Kissinger’s criticism. Still, it’s a slippery slope, especially with the Hamas wing of his own party claiming that they won’t support President Biden for re-election. Will Biden/Blinken heed the Hamas wing of their party to stop providing Israel with weapons to defend itself?
If comments like those of Blinken and Macron are not first pointed at Hamas, repeatedly and clearly without any qualifications for their October 7 massacre and using their own civilians as human shields, they are simply not credible. But being credible no longer matters when Pallywood mixes up its main characters (terrorists) with the extras (civilians), putting the latter at risk no matter the suffering.
To push back on the mounting pressure, an invisible but increasingly strong front against Israel from the West, the Genesis 123 Foundation has launched an international petition to call upon the US, Red Cross, G7, and all countries whose citizens are hostages in Gaza to end pressure for a cease-fire and make the first priority to bring home ALL the hostages.
It’s time for all Jews and Christians and all people of conscience everywhere to stand with Israel to defeat Hamas and bring home the hostages. Pandering to terrorists through a cease-fire, ransom, or any other appeasement will just mean more death and suffering. This will continue in Israel for sure, but it is just a moment away from the violent protests against Jews in the West turning on their host countries, too.
Through the end of his life, Michel Bacos was recognized as a hero. In 2019, Israel’s national anthem was played at his funeral, where he was honored by the mayor of Nice, “Michel, bravely refusing to give in to anti-Semitism and barbarism, did honor to France. The love of France and the defense of liberties have marked his destiny.”
Today is the world’s Bacos moment. Will you stand with Israel to defend itself and bring home the hostages, or appease the terrorists and allow more death and suffering?
Macron and Blinken, like most Leftists, are girly man Nancies.
That little worm Macron is a pure Globalist. He has always been anti-nationalist
and for open borders and mass migration. He has welcomed the incursion of
Muslim migration which has now detrimentally overwhelmed French society –
a society suffering from huge, festering wounds of Islamic domination to which
Macron is now running around trying to apply bandaids.
When one hears calls for a ceasefire in Gaza from the likes of him – one should
remember that he – as well as all other globalist communists – wants his own
country destroyed for the one-world government he covets. Why should he
want anything different for Israel?
Demands for a ceasefire from fiends like these, including from their rampaging
pro-Palestinian supporters throughout the world – mean that it is the worst thing
Israel could do to save itself.
I love it that France is gone…overtaken by Islam.
Macron will not be spared. They’ll exterminate him along with the Jews and all dhimmis that think as Macron does. Marie LePen is France’s only hope. She at least has balls where Macron definitely has none.
Of all the honors bestowed on him, I bet the Israel national anthem played at his funeral was Captain Bacos’ favorite one. But a hero? Honestly, you don’t need to be heroic to refuse to abandon a group – any group – of prisonners into the hands of terrorists, especially when these prisonners have been entrusted to your care? What medic, what nurse, what teacher, what clergyman, what Marine would ever betray his fellow human beings this way? You don’t need to be heroic, you just need to do the right thing. Captain Bacos did his duty as a leader – and the marvel is that the rest of his crew followed his lead and did their duty too.
All the accolades he and his crew received were richly deserved – not because they were heroes, but because they risked their lives and did their duty at a time when it is not fashionable to do so.
That is the very definition of a hero. One who does what is right even at the cost of risking his life.
Were you looking for a cape and mask?
LIsten keyboard warrior, HE WAS HEROIC
After cleaning out Gaza, Israel needs to send the Bill to the U.N. For this valuable service to humanity.
Pace Jonathan Feldstein, Israel’s primary objective should be to utterly destroy Hamas, bring it to its knees, and force an unconditional surrender. The location and release of the hostages is, I’m sorry to say, secondary. And Gaza’s Muslim population needs to be expelled. Netanyahu spoke of their “deradicalization.” How? By writing a new Koran? By Jews? Absolute nonsense.
The Czechs know a bit about cowardly appeasement. See Chamberlain & Daladier in 1939, bringing ‘peace in our time’ home – fools.
Our goyim family celebrated Israel’s victory in 1967 – hugely. Prior to Entebbe (greatly executed rescue; all hostages free, all terrorists dead!), there was the massacre of Israel athletes by Palestinians in Munich 1972 – been there. In my book, the craven coward islamists & jihadis in all their infernal permutations must be exterminated w/ extreme prejudice – no root or branch left. They are sadistic barbarians hiding behind toddlers & women – stinking scum. Have no right to live in civilized society. Even the Romans, no friends of Judea, would get rid of them, pronto.
Never forget how they ended the big Hijacking of the Airliner at the Entebee Airport