COUNTERSTROKE AT SOLTSY - Strategy & Tactics Press

the rescuers
With a distinguished military career already behind him, 30year-old
Lt. Col. Jonathan “Yoni” Netaniahu was chosen by the
general staff to command Operation Thunderball. At age 18, Netaniahu
had received his officer cadet school graduate pin from then-
Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, so the prime minister knew of
the young man and his abilities from way back.
Netaniahu was born in New York City in 1946, and later moved
to Israel. He joined the Israeli Army, volunteered for the paratroopers
and graduated from officer training school. He served during
the 1967 Six Day War, then briefly returned to the United States
to attend Harvard. He went back to Israel in order to engage in the
ongoing struggle against the Arabs. His brother Benjamin (who
would later go on to international fame as a counter-terrorism
expert) was a member of the top secret special operations force
called the Sayeret Matkal (known sometimes as “the Unit”). Jonathan
joined up and demonstrated his abilities in special operations,
quickly becoming the unit’s deputy commander.
In 1972 he led an Israeli commando team in a raid into Lebanon
that seized several high ranking Syrian officers to be exchanged
for Israeli pilots who had been captured. During the 1973 war he
and his men fought the Syrians on the Golan Heights. He briefly
transferred to command an armored brigade, but in June 1975 was
appointed commander of Sayeret Matkal. During the following
year he was involved with several special operations missions, all
of which have remained classified—except Entebbe.
…terror is a cancer in the body of the Free World, and Israel sees it
as her duty to lop off the malignant tentacles. It is to be hoped that
[Operation Jonathan’s] influence will not die away, that the terror
organizations will understand the capability that is the fist of the
Israeli Army.”
turning Point
The success of the Entebbe rescue mission was just what Israel
needed. Rabin and his ministers were relieved to see their country
revive from the dark mood which had blanketed the nation since the
1972 terrorist massacre of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, and
the Arabs’ battlefield successes early in the 1973 war.
The impression had been well made. Throughout the West and
even in parts of the Third World praise for the Israeli raid on Entebbe
left no doubt that there was widespread support for a new
offensive against terrorism. The IDF showed how counter-terrorist
operations could be executed even against seemingly impossible
odds. Good intelligence, thorough training and, most importantly, a
refusal to give in to demands were the winning combination.
References
Ben-Porat, Yeshayahu. Haber, Eitan. Schiff, Zeevi. Entebbe Rescue,
Dell Publishing, 1977.
Hastings, Max. Yoni: Hero of Entebbe, The Dial Press, 1979.
Kyemba, Henry. A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin,
Ace Books, 1977.
Netaniahu, Jonathan. Self-Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan
Netaniahu, Random House, 1980.
Lt. Col. Jonathan
Netaniahu
Route chosen for the raid.
strategy & tactics 49