4 July, 1976, saw a military operation beyond compare.

102 Israeli hostages being held in the old terminal at Entebbe airport in Uganda were rescued by a crack troop of Israeli soldiers. If ever a real-life mission could be described as impossible this was it. The bravery might have spilled over into foolhardiness; but fortune favours the brave, and meticulous planning by those guys manufactured a lot of fortune. You can see a 45-minute jaw-dropping documentary here, featuring some of the men who took part.

The fortieth anniversary of the operation was marked at Entebbe airport, when President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to commemorate the event by attending a summit with many other African heads of state.  In my previous posting we watched Museveni’s speech of welcome.  Today we look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s reply.

This speech is less than six minutes long, and immensely important. I would have loved to have worked on it with him, releasing him from the tyranny of that bloody script for one thing (it caused at least two examples of word-stumbling), and for another making  everyone listen to this…

When terrorism succeeds in one place it spreads to other places; and when terrorism is defeated anywhere it’s weakened everywhere.

With those words Netanyahu has a message for the whole world, in particular to those who have turned appeasement into a lifestyle choice. It is quite difficult to find a western politician, mainstream news medium, or opinion former of any kind, who hasn’t.

Netanyahu uses this speech for two essential messages. Predictably he pays tribute to the soldiers who carried out the rescue in 1976. He has brought some of them with him on this visit – his brother, Yoni, commanded the mission and was the only fatality among the Israeli soldiers. But he concentrates less on lauding their heroism and more on the example they set to today’s battle with terrorism as a whole – hence that quote above.

The other message concerns his wish to strengthen trading relationships with African nations.

It seems to me that they should all be lining up to do business with Israel. The country may be a tiny sliver of land in the middle of a huge region of oil-rich nations who want to destroy her, but without any conspicuous natural resources she has succeeded in creating prosperity and order. She is the only working democracy in the region.

As a prospective trading partner she has a matchless reputation for scientific and technical innovation.  That is why India has forged such a strong political and commercial relationship with her.

You may have problems with some of her politics, but you are not alone. Her fiercest critics are among her own citizens. Nevertheless it is worth pointing out that she is the only country in that region that protects freedom of speech, politics, religion, and sexuality, whereas her neighbours officially practise quaint local customs like tossing offenders off high buildings.

She is not decadent – and there are few western countries of whom you can say that. Being constantly threatened on all sides has kept her lean and mean.

Most importantly she has repeatedly shown loyalty. The Entebbe rescue mission was a shining example. Compare it, for example, to the Benghazi attack on the US Embassy in September 2012, and reflect afresh on the western decadence I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Israel’s principal failing seems to be in allowing her neighbours to persuade the western intelligentsia that for all their barbaric aggression, for all their sponsoring of worldwide terrorist atrocities, they are somehow victims. Perhaps Israel sees the dark arts of PR as just another symptom of decadence, or they recognise the current crop of intelligentsia as a pitifully dim bunch.

At any rate, if the chips were down, there is no one I’d prefer to have on my side than Israel.