A column by Jeff Jacoby at JewishWorldReview.com makes some observations inspired by the memory of Israel’s July 4th, 1976 raid and rescue at Entebbe, Uganda.

Thirty years ago this week, on July 4, 1976, Israel carried out one of the most spectacular rescue missions in history — the raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda that freed more than 100 Jewish hostages being held by Arab and German terrorists. A team of commandos led by Yonatan Netanyahu secretly flew more than 2,000 miles, landing at Entebbe in the dead of night and taking the terrorists and the Ugandan soldiers guarding the airfield by surprise. In a whirlwind attack, the Israelis killed the terrorists, rescued the hostages, and destroyed 11 of Uganda’s Soviet-supplied MiG fighters to prevent pursuit. Then, just 58 minutes after they had touched down, they lifted off for the eight-hour flight home. The only rescuer to die in the operation was Netanyahu, whose heroism would become the stuff of Israeli legend.

He later laments the failure so far of Israel’s current policy of disengagement to produce any peace dividends for the Israeli people.

The surrender of Gaza didn’t appease Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it convinced them that Israelis were weak, that terrorism worked — and that more terrorism would work even better.

So more terrorism followed. “In just the past two weeks,” I wrote last September, “a Palestinian knifed a Jewish student to death in Jerusalem’s Old City, an Israeli policemen was stabbed in the throat by an Arab in Hebron, Kassam rockets were fired from Gaza into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Beersheba’s crowded bus station, a Katyusha missile launched from Lebanon exploded in the Israeli village of Margaliot, a firebomb was thrown at an Israeli vehicle on a highway outside Jerusalem, and a 14-year-old boy from Nablus was caught with three bombs.”

In the months since then, the Palestinian war against Israel has continued without letup. All that changed was the frontline — with the Jewish settlements and soldiers gone, it moved right up to the border, making it easier than ever for attacks to penetrate Israeli territory. The Gaza security fence has been no panacea. Sderot and other towns in southern Israel have been bombarded by hundreds of rockets fired over the fence. The gunmen who abducted Shalit and killed two of his comrades entered Israel by tunneling under the fence.

The frontline undoubtedly has changed, and days ago the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades were happy to boast that they are now capable of launching chemical and biological weapons into Israel. An idle boast or a real threat? Not so nice to have to wonder, I’d guess.

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