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Thehistory of theJews inUganda is connected to some local tribes who have converted to Judaism, such as theAbayudaya, down to the twentieth century when Uganda under British control was offered to theJews of the world as a "Jewish homeland" under theBritish Uganda Programme known as the "Uganda Plan" and culminating with the troubled relationship between Ugandan leaderIdi Amin withIsrael that ended withOperation Entebbe known as the "Entebbe Rescue" or "Entebbe Raid" of 1976.[1]
The smallAbayudaya tribe converted toJudaism in the early 20th century.[2] Their population is estimated at 2,500[3] having once been as large as 3,000 prior to the persecutions of theIdi Amin regime.[4] Like their neighbors, they are subsistence farmers. Most Abayudaya are ofBagwere origin, except for those fromNamutumba who areBasoga. They speakLuganda,Lusoga orLugwere, although some have learnedHebrew as well.[5]
TheBritish Uganda Programme was a plan to give a portion ofBritish East Africa to theJewish people as a homeland.[6] The offer was first made by British Colonial SecretaryJoseph Chamberlain toTheodore Herzl'sZionist group in 1903. He offered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2) of the Mau Plateau in what is todayKenya andUganda.[7] The offer was a response topogroms against the Jews inRussia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.[8]
In 1972 relations withIsrael soured. Although Israel had previously supplied Uganda with arms, in 1972Idi Amin, enraged over Israel's refusal to supply Uganda with jets for a war with neighboringTanzania, expelledIsraeli military advisers and turned toLibya and theSoviet Union for support.[9] Amin became an outspoken critic of Israel.[1] In the documentary filmGeneral Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, he discussed his plans for war against Israel, using paratroops, bombers and suicide squadrons.[10] Amin later stated thatHitler "was right to burn six million Jews".[11]
In June 1976, Amin allowed anAir France airliner hijacked by two members of thePopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) and two members of theGermanRevolutionäre Zellen to land atEntebbe Airport. There, the hijackers were joined by three more. Soon after, 156 non-Jewish hostages who did not hold Israeli passports were released and flown to safety, while 83 Jews and Israeli citizens, as well as 20 others who refused to abandon them (among whom were the captain and crew of the hijackedAir France jet), continued to be held hostage. In the subsequent Israeli rescue operation, codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (popularly known asOperation Entebbe), nearly all the hostages were freed. Three hostages died during the operation and 10 were wounded; seven hijackers, 45 Ugandan soldiers, and one Israeli soldier,Yoni Netanyahu, were killed. A fourth hostage, 75-year-oldDora Bloch, who had been taken toMulago Hospital inKampala prior to the rescue operation, was subsequently murdered in reprisal. The incident further soured Uganda's international relations, leading Britain to close itsHigh Commission in Uganda.[12]
Operation Entebbe was a hostage-rescue mission carried out by theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) atEntebbe Airport inUganda on July 4, 1976.[13] A week earlier, on June 27, anAir France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian revolutionaries and supporters and flown toEntebbe, nearKampala, the capital of Uganda. Shortly after landing, all non-Jewish passengers were released. The operation took place at night, as Israeli transport planes carried 100 elite commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes and 103 hostages were rescued. Five Israelicommandos were wounded and one, the commander,Lt ColYonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and 11 Soviet-builtMiG-17's of Uganda's air force were destroyed.[14] A fourth hostage was murdered[15] by Ugandan army officers at a nearby hospital.[16]
Dora Bloch, a 75-year-old British Jewish immigrant, was taken toMulago Hospital inKampala, and was murdered by the Ugandan government, as were some of her doctors and nurses for apparently trying to intervene.[17] In April 1987,Henry Kyemba, Uganda'sAttorney General andMinister of Justice at the time, told theUganda Human Rights Commission that Bloch had been dragged from her hospital bed and murdered by two army officers on Idi Amin's orders. Mrs Bloch had been shot and her body dumped in the trunk of a car which had Ugandan intelligence services number plates. Bloch's remains were recovered near a sugar plantation 20 miles (32 km) east ofKampala in 1979,[16] after theUgandan–Tanzanian War led to the end of Amin's rule.[18]
Thegovernment of Uganda, led byJuma Oris, the Ugandan Foreign Minister at the time, later convened a session of theUnited Nations Security Council to seek official condemnation of the Israeli raid,[19] as a violation of Ugandansovereignty. The Security Council ultimately declined to pass any resolution on the matter, condemning neither Israel, nor Uganda. In his address to the council, Israeli ambassadorChaim Herzog said:
We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.[20][21]
— HERZOG, Chaim.
Israel received support from the Western World for its operation.West Germany called the raid "an act of self defense".Switzerland andFrance also praised Israel for the operation. Significant praise was received from representatives of theUnited Kingdom and theUS both of whom called it "an impossible operation". Some in the United States noted that the hostages were freed on July 4, 1976, which was 200 years since the signing of the US declaration of independence.[22][23][24]
UN Secretary GeneralKurt Waldheim described the raid as "a serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state".[25] Dozens of Ugandan soldiers were killed in the raid. The Arab and Communist world condemned the operation calling it an act of aggression.
For refusing to depart (and subsequently leave some of his passengers as hostages) when given leave to do so by the hijackers,Captain Bacos was reprimanded by his superiors at Air France and suspended from duty for a period. He was awarded byIsrael for his heroism in refusing to leave theJewish hostages behind.[26]
In the ensuing years, Betser and the Netanyahu brothers—Iddo andBenjamin, allSayeret Matkal veterans—argued in increasingly public forums about who was to blame for the unexpected early firefight which caused Yonatan Netanyahu's death and partial loss of tactical surprise.[27][28]
Britain stepped into the picture, offering Herzl land in the largely undeveloped area of Uganda (today, it would be considered an area of Kenya). ...
