Talk:Operation Entebbe

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Is this Netanyahu family of Benjamin Netanyahu? -- Error

I believe Yonatan was his brother. -- Vasi
Definitively was, see Yoni Netanyahu. --Palapala 22:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Reverted edit to read "Entebbe, Uganda airport". That's what it was known by at the time (and a long time after). If they insist on calling it "Entebbe International Airport" today, that's a different matter... --Palapala 22:08, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Was Carlos the Jackal involved?

There is an inconsistency here: it says that (among others) there were two terrorists led by Carlos the Jackal, but the entry of Carlos the Jackal says he was not involved in the Entebbe highjacking. He wasn't.

It was my mistake. Won't happen again.  :)

[edit] 139 or 193?

Another inconsistency: The article talks about Flight 139 first, but later mentions "Flight 193 Captain Michel Bacos". A Google search revealed no certainty about which one it was. Mariusk 18:38, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I corrected it. 139 is correct. Pouya 21:24, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mitsva or Mivtsa?

I know that imdb.com says the title is "Mivtsa Jonatan", but I think that's a mistransliteration of the Hebrew. My thinking is the "mitsva" or "mitzvah" means "great deed". However I don't speak or read Hebrew, can we get an expert opinion here? Ellsworth 21:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if I'm an expert, but you're right, and I've fixed it. A google of "mitsva yonatan" confirms this. Jayjg 02:50, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mitsva (mitzva) means "commandment" in Hebrew (plural mitzvot), like the 613 mitzvot and is used almost exclusively by religious Orthodox Jews only, it only has a very secondary colloquial usage of "good deed". Mivtsa (or mivtza) is used in Israeli military terms for a campaign or operation or even a war. Thus the 1956 War was known as the Mivtsa Sinai meaning "[The] Sinai Campaign." The title is definitely "Mivtsa Jonatan" and it is NOT a "mistransliteration of the Hebrew" at all. imdb.com had it right first time around with regards to Mivtsa, although for the sake of correct transliteration it should have been consistent and used Yonatan (with a "Y", which is the way the name is used in Hebrew) instead of the part-English Jonatan (which when used in English should be "Jonathan" with an "h".) I have made the correction in the article. Hope this helps you. Be well. IZAK 04:16, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, all those google hits must have been errors then. Jayjg 04:36, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It's been known to happen. Thanks to all. Ellsworth 18:50, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Pre-operation planning and logistics?

The article says

"After days of collecting intelligence and careful planning, four Hercules transport aircraft flew down..."

It is unclear who was planning and from where the aircraft flew "down". Presumably the planning was by IDF (and Mossad?) and the planes flew down from Israel, but the text is very vague. I get the feeling that it assumes that the reader has some background knowledge of the events described. Molinari 00:12, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The book "the History of Battles" (Paul Press Ltd.) contains an entry for Entebbe. It describes the flight path of the Israeli planes as taking off from Sharm-el-Shekh, a town on the southern tip of the Sinai Penninsula (then in Israeli hands), flying south over the Red Sea, before swinging South-West over Ethiopia and Kenya before reaching Entebbe. Sangil 15:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plane info/picture/fate

According the following source (http://www.planecrashinfo.com/1976/1976-36.htm), the Air France plane was an A300 Airbus registration number F-BVGG. Accordinjg to another source (http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/?app=a300&msn=19), that plane s/n is 19,and it is currently in use by a Turkish airline (or freight company) MNG under registration TC-MNA. Therefore, it seems that it can't be the plane shown on the picture. Further;ore, the picture's name is Operation_thunderbolt_707.JPG which implies it shows a Boeing 707, and the previous versions of the picture pages actualy said it was a Bo[e]ing 707. Could anyone please clarify this? And if anyone has info on how Air France got that plane back, it would be welcome. Thanks. After looking at the Airbus A300 and Boeing 707 pages on Wikipedia, it is clear that the plane is definitely not an airbus A300, but may be a Boeing 707. The picture shows a four-engine jet like the Boeing 707, whereas Airbus A300 are twin-engine. I will therefore remove the picture from this page.

According to this article (about halfway down), the plane is still sitting there at Entebbe airport - why? Because France and Uganda have been unable to agree on who has to pay for disposing of it? Some other reason? Information needed. Ellsworth 19:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Thunderbolt

Why is this titled "Operation Entebbe" instead of Thunderbolt (or Yonathan)? Does anyone actually call it "Operation Entebbe"? Regardless, this should be changed, and a disambiguation page set up b/c Operation Thunderbolt now leads to a video game page.

In Israel the operation is popularly known as "operation Entebbe", and officialy as "operation Yonatan". No one (except Hollywood) really calls it "Operation Thunderbolt"...Sangil 22:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting, cos in the UK it's better known as Operation Thunderbolt or, even more commonly as "Raid on Entebbe". I've created a new page for the latter that redirects here. Dweller 09:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
In the US it's primarily known as "the raid on Entebbe" as well. I'm inclined to deprecate military operation names as article names unless the operation name is the NPOV most-common name, simply because they are often chosen for propaganda purposes, and because they intrinsically represent the point of view of the military operation "side". --Dhartung | Talk 22:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thunderbolt or Thunderball?

I noticed that on the Operation Thunderball page there's a disambiguity thingy referring to "Operation Thunderball" that points here. Operation Thunderball? Simple error, so delete? Dweller 09:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Now fixed. --Dweller 10:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Captain Bacos

Additionally, for refusing to leave the plane, Captain Bacos was reprimanded by his superiors at Air France and suspended from duty for a period.

Why was Captain Bacos reprimanded? It's probably a token punishment but it still doesn't make sense. For example, on a ship, the captain always has the highest responsibility for his crews and passengers and will be reprimanded if he leaves them behind. I thought it is the same thing with an airplane. It's not like that he forced other crews to remain behind or was unreasonably cooperative with hijackers. What's the rule here? -- Revth 06:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, it could just be a reflection of the French historically favoring the Palestinian cause, to the detriment of Israel. There have been many examples of this throughout history. However, it would be interesting if there was any official documents from Air France about what their rationale was. -- Tzadik 04:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe all airlines had that policy in order back then. The rationale is to prevent the airplane from taking off again. --Geekish 17:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Was Baader Meinhof Involved?

I think the Baader-Meinhof gang was not involved in the hijacking. I wrote a paper on them in college, thinking that they were involved, and as I recall they weren't. I'm going to check on this.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.162.55.77 (talk • contribs) 17:53, 19 December 2005.

The two German terrorists were members of the "Revolutionäre Zellen", the second most prominent urban guerilla group in Germany. The Red Army Faction was not involved in this incident whatsoever.

[edit] paadu jews citation

What is it in reference to in the article, and why is it only coming out now? If nobody claims it I'm deleting it. ⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 19:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I just did some research. There's no such book, publishing company, or ISBN entry (at least not that I could find), and it looks like vandalism. I've reverted it. Whoever put it there can put it back if sufficient evidence can be cited that it's real. Makaristos 19:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] paragraph(s) need reworking

The fifth and sixth paragraphs in Operation_Entebbe#Israeli_raid need major fixing up. It seems like they are two parallel accounts. The first is written like a movie script. --Stoopideggs2 23:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistency over negotiation

The first paragraph of the "Israeli Raid" section reads "The government of Israel refused to negotiate with the hijackers. They instead decided to undertake a military rescue mission to free the remaining hostages..." The last part of the "Analysis" section holds that "In the week prior to the raid, Israel had tried a number of political avenues to obtain the release of the hostages. Many sources indicate that the Israeli cabinet was prepared to release Palestinian prisoners if a military solution seemed unlikely to succeed." While political avenues needn't involve direct negotiations, does anyone else find this a bit contradictory? Could these statements in the analysis section properly be included at the beginning of the raid section?

I agree! This page could use some editing. Many young people read Wikipedia articles and they should be well written. Bonnieisrael 11:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


  • Good point. What I 'think' I remember reading "somewhere"(!) is that the Israelis refused to negotiate with the terrorists, but unsuccessfully used political pressure on the Ugandans and various Arab regimes / groups to try to avert their perceived dilemma of caving in or using force. Would be happy for someone more knowledgable to confirm / contradict Dweller 09:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delisted GA

This article did not go through the current GA nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2b of the GA quality standards. Although references are provided, the citation of sources is essential for verifiability. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed, to reexamine the article against the GA quality standards, and to submit the article through the nomination process. --RelHistBuff 13:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Netanyahu's death

Am i missing something? or is there a reason that there is no information given about the only Israeli casualty? Yoni Netanyahu is identified at the beginnng of the article, but there is no explanation of how he died, who killed him. From the description given in the article neither the hijackers nor the Ugandans gave any fire until the Israelis were leaving, but at that point "[t]he Israelis returned fire without sustaining any casualties of their own...". We seem to be missing some fairly important information here. Cheers, Lindsay 11:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Facts

Hello all, Hope this clears up some questions about the Entebbe Raid 1/ The name was "Operation Thunderball", it was changed to "Operation Yonatan" afterwards, in memory of Yonatan Netanyahu ["Yoni"]. In Ivrit [Hebrew] a military operation is MIVTSA, [not Mitzva]. Yoni was Benjamin Netanyahu's brother. 2/ Yoni was killed by a bullet in the back, fired from the control tower, as he led those rescued to the airplane 3/ Yoni was not the overall commander, nor its planner, but he was the commander of the rescue party that went into the airport building. However he would have had input into the plan. 4/ The initial order to consider a rescue was given to Deputy Head of General Staff Branch, Brig. Gen. Avigdor Ben-Gal. The planning team consisted of Co-odinator and chief planner Kuti Adam, Intelligence advisor on terrorism Major General Rehavam Zeevi, Intelligence CinC Shlomo Gazit, Air CinC Major General Benny Peled, Medical CinC Brigadier General Dan Michael, Ehud Barak the Deputy Head of IDF Intelligence Branch [Israel's most decorated soldier, later Chief of Staff, then Prime Minister], and Communications CinC Brigadier General Yisroel Zamir. Tactical planning of the entry into the airport building was assisted by legendry Paratroop Major Moshe "Muki" Betser who was second in command and the officer who led the break-in to the hostage building [2]. 5/ Overall ground commander was Brigadier General [later chief of staff] Dan Shomron, who was then chief of Paratroopers and Infantry. 6/ Supreme commander was Chief of Staff Gen Mordechai ["Motta"] Gur and his deputy Brig. Gen. Avigdor Ben-Gal. 7/ Approval for the raid came at the last hour from Defence Minister Shimon Peres, after a series of meetings and phone calls. 8/ Carlos "The Jackal" had nothing to do with the hi-jacking. 9/ The raid party was drawn from 2 units of the Paratroopers and the Sayeret Golani. Yoni was a commander of one of the Paratroop units that supplied men for the mission. The composite unit was designated "Sayeret Matkal", a designation given to any ad hoc force raised by the general staff special unit for a special mission . Sayeret means "Reconnaisance Unit", analogous with "Commandoes" or even "Special Forces" in the western military. 10. On July 1, before the raid, P.M. Yithak and his cabinet voted unanimously to negotiate with the terrorists. This was aborted by Idi Amin's friendly visit to the terrorists at the airport. 11. The "Red Army Faction" aka Bader Meinhof Gang[3] was not the same as the Revolutionary Cell that caried out the hi-jacking, but the two groups came from the same upheaval that swept Europe at the time. [4].Historygypsy 04:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage of the loaded term "6 terrorists"?

The word "terrorists" is so loaded, that I believe it should not be used in this article, especially in its introduction. Seeing that the other participants are called, for example, "members of the Ugandan army", the so-called terrorists should therefore also be referred to as (at least) members of their respective organization(s).

Furthermore, to see so much discussion on this talk page and no mention of the mentioned, inappropriate usage of such a loaded term, is not a good thing for Wikipedia. No matter how much grievance this act may have caused, let's not, as a result, bias "history in the wiki", eh? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.69.14.35 (talk) 00:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

People who hijack planes are terrorists. That is not loaded, it is definition. --יהושועEric 18:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, not exactly definition, or certainly not THE definition. Some people who hijack planes are hijackers; i don't think i ever read about D. B. Cooper as a terrorist. On the other hand, i think that it is fair to say that these people fell under most people's use of the word, and i don't see it as a bias here. Cheers, Lindsay 13:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
People who belong to terrorist organisations are obviously terrorists. The people who hijacked the plane are terrorists. Nothing loaded about that term, because it is fact. Wikiphyte 14:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many terrorists?

Ok guys, so we have 2 palestinian terrorists in the plane and 2 RZ terrorists on the plane. That makes 4 Terrorists. Than, on the ground, they were joined by another 3 terrorists, according to the article. But in the rest of the article, it is only the talk about 6 terrorists (for example: all 6 terrorist were killed). So, 4 on the plane and 3 on the ground makes 7 in my calculations. There is an error somewhere... or have I overlooked something? Maybe one terrorist left and it isn't yet written down here, or they were only joined by 2 terrorists on the ground, or one terrorist was just wounded and not killed. So what is the deal now? I'm not too much into this article, so maybe some of those guys who know better about this incident can make this clear! Thx... ColdCase 18:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

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