Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang)

Idi Amin, president of Uganda from 1971 and a Muslim, has reversed Uganda's amicable relations with Israel and befriended Libya and the Palestinians.

He is personally involved in ...

...the skyjacking of an Air France jet airliner en route from Israel to France, which is hijacked by German and Palestinian terrorists after stopping at Athens on June 27, 1976, and flown to ...

...Entebbe, Uganda.

Here, the hijackers, two of whom are members of Red Army faction (a.k.a. the Baader-Meinhof gang) free those of the two hundred and fifty-eight passengers who do not appear to be Israeli and hold hostage the remaining one hundred and three for the release of fifty-three fellow terrorists imprisoned in Israel, Kenya, West Germany, and elsewhere.

The Palestinians are PFLP members who have by this act broken a PLO agreement to end terrorism outside Israeli-held territory.

Rabin responds by dispatching four Hercules C-130H cargo planes carrying 100­ to 200 soldiers and escorted by Phantom jet fighters on July 3.

After flying twenty-five hundred miles from Israel, ...

...Uganda, the Mossad commandos, possessing reliable information on the exact location of the buildings at the airport, of the roads leading to Entebbe, and of military bases in the region, are able to land the transport planes.

They destroy eleven MiG fighters supplied to Uganda by the Soviet Union, kill all seven of the hijackers, and depart with most of the hostages before the Ugandan military can react.

The Israelis lose one soldier (the raid's leader, Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of future Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and three hostages during the operation.

On the return trip, ...

...the Israeli planes meet an awaiting hospital plane and refuel at Nairobi, Kenya.

The remarkable success of Israel's brilliant Entebbe raid substantially boosts Israeli morale, but is of little help to Israel's political and economic situation.

Former general Rabin, new to politics, finds it difficult to dominate a cabinet in which his chief rival, Peres, is defense minister, and few others owe him any political allegiance.

Even before the October 1973 War, the Labor Party had been hampered by internal dissension, persistent allegations of corruption, ambiguities and contradictions in its political platform, and by the disaffection of Oriental Jews.

Labor's failure to prepare the country for the war had further alienated a large segment of the electorate.