Fifty years ago, on America’s bicentenary, elite Israeli commandos, led by thirty-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, rescued over one hundred hostages from Entebbe, over 2000 miles from Israel, in a daring operation that stunned the world. The only military casualty of the operation was its planner and leader on the ground, Yoni himself, who died as he had lived, leading from the front.

Dorron Almog, a reserve General, who as a solider participated in the Entebbe operation, noted that one of the main lessons related to Entebbe is that a few can do something for the good of the many. It was always like that, and, it seems, will always be like that. He observed that:

We will always need the spirit of Entebbe. The spirit of determination to do something for others, not just for ourselves. We will always need those daring individuals who jump ahead of the group. There will always be the few who take heroic measures for the sake of the public. I pray that those few, the pillars of fire who march before the camp, will draw many others, for which the wonderful Entebbe metaphor is a way of life.

We will always need the spirit of Entebbe. The spirit of determination to do something for others, not just for ourselves. We will always need those daring........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)