President Yoweri Museveni has said that the Entebbe raid was “another bond” linking “Israel and Palestine to Africa.”
He was on Monday afternoon addressing selected guests at the ceremony to welcome visiting Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the scene of the 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue in Uganda, in which his brother, Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu who led the raid, was killed.
Museveni evoked the biblical story of Joseph, which “was also a sad story but also created a bond, just like this one here.”
He also said “baby Jesus” was hidden in Egypt, apparently implying that he was “another bond between Africa and Palestine, both born out of sad circumstances.”
Museveni implored that “Even… the Muslim religion” bonded with Africa when the Prophet Muhammad was forced to flee to the continent.
He went on to link other historical and mythical events that connect the Middle East to Africa.
Turning to Netanyahu, President Museveni said, “Your brother Jonathan, some Israeli hostages, and some Ugandan soldiers were killed here, on that night, fourth of July 1976.”
“Fortunately, the rescue mission succeeded and the innocent civilians were rescued,” he added.
About oil power of the Arab states
In his speech, Museveni also related a story about a meeting he once had with the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“When I went to Iran, and there was the man who was president at the time, the one before the current one – Ahmadinejad – I told him about this biblical story,” he said, relating to the stories linking Jews to the Holy Land. “He was telling me the Jews are not from the Middle East, but from Europe. I said no, I have my Bible, I had my bible with me, I showed it to him.”
Museveni related that Ahmadinejad “didn’t know at all, “In the bible it talks about the Persians and Midianites. I said where are the Midianite? I know you are the Persians. But where are Midianites? He didn’t know.”
The point is, he said, “There is a lot of ignorance. Sure, I don’t want to tell my Arab friends and our Iranians friends that you are all mentioned in the Bible.”
He also noted, as an aside, that “Ugandans believe you are Christian… they don’t know that you are the grandchildren of Abraham.”
“I normally tell my Arab friends that you’re both mentioned in the Bible,” Museveni said.
Israel commemorates raid on Entebbe
Under a huge white tent sat several hundreds of guests, including several dozen Israeli soldiers, Ugandan officials and members of the local Jewish community.
The speeches were being delivered at a control tower of the Old Entebbe Airport, where the hostage drama unfolded 40 years ago to the day.
The emcee, reading from a notebook, said that the rescuing of hostages is an important religious commandment in Judaism.
She read out the names of the three victims who were killed at the airport, and Dora Bloch, the 72-year-old British-Israeli who was later killed in Entebbe hospital.
Akiva Laxer, one of the Entebbe hostages, uttered a blessing of thanks for surviving the ordeal.
“On behalf of my three children,” he says, “I bless You, Lord, our God, Who has performed a miracle for me in this place,” he said.
Addressing the crowd, Prime Minister Netanyahu said he is “moved” to stand on the ground where Israeli soldiers freed the hostages thousands of kilometers from Israeli soil.
“I am moved to stand here on the place where IDF troops rescued hostages here in the heart of Africa, so far from home,” he said.
He mentioned his brother Yoni, who he said charged at the head of the force that landed in the airport and attacked the terrorists.
“Entebbe is always with me, in my thoughts, my consciousness and deep in my heart,” he confessed.
“Every one of you,” Netanyahu continued, “the soldiers and pilots, whether here or not — you didn’t know whether you would come home,” Netanyahu said and praised soldiers and pilots who participated in raid.
“You came to rescue, but you knew that if something went wrong there was no certainty that someone would come to rescue you,” he added.
Israeli commandos freed more than 100 hostages held for a week at an airport terminal, in a daring operation. They returned to Israel on 4 July 1976.
Four hostages, at least seven hostage-takers and 20 Ugandan troops who were guarding the old terminal were also killed.
Almost all those freed were Israeli and non-Israeli Jews, who had been separated from other passengers by the hostage-takers. The Air France captain and his 12-strong crew were also rescued.
The non-Jewish passengers had been released by the hostage-takers earlier in the week.
After the ceremony, Netanyahu laid a wreath at a monument commemorating the raid on the airport.
The Israeli leader also unveiled two plaques. One plaque has the names of those who were killed during the Entebbe raid on 4 July 1976.
The other is for the renovation of the trauma centre at Mulago National Referral hospital.
