France and Israel, United by Terror, Divided by Memory

Before condemning Israel, France should remember Entebbe, Marseille, Somalia, and Mali, and admit that Israel is fighting for the same values France claims to defend: life, liberty, and human dignity.

In June 1976, Air France Flight 139 was hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists and flown to Entebbe, Uganda, under the protection of Idi Amin. On the ground, the hijackers separated Jewish passengers from the others, threatening to execute them if their demands were not met. France suddenly found itself at the centre of a nightmare, with its own citizens and national airline trapped in the grip of terror. The French crew, led by Captain Michel Bacos, refused to abandon the Jewish hostages, choosing instead to stay in solidarity with them.

It was Israel that mounted the rescue. In a mission that has become legendary, Israeli commandos flew more than 2,000 miles to storm the terminal, kill the hijackers, and free over 100 hostages. The operation lasted just 53 minutes. All seven hijackers and 33 Ugandan soldiers were killed. Three hostages died in the crossfire and one, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, was later murdered in an Ugandan hospital. The commander of the raid, Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, was the only Israeli commando killed. Operation Entebbe remains one of the most daring hostage rescues in modern history. That day, Israel saved French citizens simply because Jews had been singled out for annihilation. For France this was not a distant lesson. It was personal.

The commander of the raid, Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, was the only Israeli commando killed. 

Yet France seems to have forgotten the reality it briefly lived through in 1976, the fear, the helplessness, and the relief when bold action saved lives. For Israel, that is not memory but daily reality. Terrorists who hijack planes, kidnap civilians, and use hostages as bargaining chips are not a rare crisis for Israel. They are a permanent feature of its existence.

Eighteen years later France faced the same horror itself. On Christmas Eve 1994, Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked in Algiers by four militants of the Armed Islamic Group. Their plan was to turn the aircraft into a flying bomb and crash it into the Eiffel Tower. As the plane sat on the runway in Algiers, the hijackers executed three passengers, including French diplomat Yannick Beugnet, shooting them and dumping their bodies onto the tarmac. When the plane finally took off and landed in Marseille, French special forces prepared to act. On 26 December, the elite counterterrorism unit GIGN stormed the aircraft. In a fierce battle lasting 20 minutes, 173 passengers and crew were rescued. All four hijackers were killed. Nine GIGN commandos were wounded along with 13 passengers and three crew members. Bullet holes riddled the fuselage, shrapnel injuries scarred the victims, and the aircraft itself was almost destroyed by the gunfight. Yet France rightly hailed the raid as a success. It had prevented an attack that could have killed thousands in Paris.

Not every French mission was successful. In January 2013, French intelligence officer Denis Allex, held hostage by al-Shabaab in Somalia for three and a half years, became the target of a commando raid. French special forces launched a night-time assault on the town of Bulo Marer where he was being held. The operation was catastrophic. Allex was executed by his captors. Two French soldiers were killed and at least eight Somali civilians, including women and a child, were killed in the crossfire. President François Hollande defended the decision, saying that France could not allow a hostage to be used indefinitely by terrorists. The operation showed that even with the best training and intelligence, hostage rescues can fail and innocents can die.

Beyond these high-profile missions, France has waged a broader war against jihadist groups in Africa. Operation Serval in Mali in 2013 and Operation Barkhane across the Sahel saw French forces conduct airstrikes, raids, and joint operations with local troops. In January 2021, a French airstrike on a wedding in Bounti, Mali, killed 19 civilians according to a UN investigation. France denied wrongdoing, insisting it had targeted jihadists. The truth was less important than the reality that civilians were killed during a French military action, something France accepted as part of the terrible cost of war against terror.

France therefore knows the truth of what Israel faces. It knows that hostages sometimes die in rescues, as Dora Bloch did at Entebbe or Denis Allex did in Somalia. It knows that civilians are sometimes killed when terrorists hide among them, as in Mali in 2021. It knows that leaders must sometimes give the order to storm planes, raid compounds, or launch strikes even when the outcome is uncertain, as at Marseille in 1994. These are not hypotheticals. They are France’s own history.

What France has experienced occasionally, Israel lives constantly. For France, hijackings, hostage crises, and terror attacks are shocking episodes that scar the national memory. For Israel, they are the fabric of daily life. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran-backed militias make hostage-taking and massacres central to their strategy. The events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered 1,200 people and dragged more than 250 hostages into Gaza, were not an aberration but part of a long pattern.

And yet France lectures Israel. It condemns Israel for civilian casualties, though French forces caused them in Somalia, Mali, and Niger. It judges Israel for fighting terrorists in Gaza, though France fought them in Marseille with bullets and grenades. It questions Israel’s right to act, though France has acted under far less pressure and with far less at stake.

Before condemning Israel, France should look in the mirror. It should remember Entebbe, when Israel saved French citizens. It should remember Marseille, when France stormed a plane and risked the lives of its passengers. It should remember Somalia, where a rescue failed and civilians died. It should remember Africa, where its bombs have killed innocents in the pursuit of jihadists. France has made these choices. France has lived with their cost. France has never been told it had no right to act. Neither should Israel.

Israel does not ask for indulgence. It asks for honesty. And honesty demands that France admit the truth: Israel is fighting for the same values France claims to uphold. The defence of life. The defence of liberty. The defence of human dignity against those who would destroy all three. That is the hard lesson of terror. And it is one France should never forget.