There’s a fascinating story about a daring Israeli commando raid 35 years ago in the Jerusalem Post.
The Sabena plane had been hijacked by Black September, a PLO splinter group, after leaving Vienna, where it had stopped on a flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv. Levy was ordered to fly the plane to Tel Aviv, where the gunmen offered to free the passengers in exchange for 100 Arab prisoners held by Israel. At the airport, commandos deflated the aircraft’s tires, and then, posing as maintenance staff, they burst onto the plane and rescued the hostages after a brief gun fight. Two male hijackers were killed and their two female companions were captured.
At the end of the ordeal, the pilot, Levy, placed his cap on the head of one of the commandos who stormed the plane but didn’t remember which one. When he returned without his cap, Sabena made him pay for a new one! Well that commando has finally returned the cap.
On Sunday, it was finally returned to his family by a former commando. A beaming Eliezer Sacks, 55, came to the offices of The Jerusalem Post to hand the cap over to Levy’s daughter, editorial assistant Linda Lipschitz. He also gave Lipschitz a letter for her 85-year-old father, who lives in England. “I want to apologize for the long time – 35 years – that I forgot to give your hat back,” Sacks told Levy in the letter written in English. “I hope the hat will find its way back to your head, and more important, find you in good health.”
And who else was involved in the raid?
Led by Ehud Barak (now defense minister and Labor chairman), they included current Likud Party Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Yatom, currently a Labor MK; and Uzi Dayan, now Tafnit party chairman.
(Netanyahu was wounded in the raid.) It would be nice if they could get their acts together in Knesset as well as they did during that daring rescue mission.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
