Documents Claim Israel Aided Entebbe Hijackers

By Mark Tran
Friday June 1, 2007
Guardian

The Israeli secret service and radical Palestinians may have engineered the hijacking of an Air France plane that flew to Entebbe in Uganda, according to a claim in newly released government documents.

This extraordinary interpretation on the Entebbe raid was cited by a British diplomat, DH Colvin of the Paris embassy, in June 30 1976...

In a document released by the National Archives, Mr Colvin, citing an unnamed contact at the Euro-Arab parliamentary association, wrote:

"According to his information, the hijack was the work of the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], with help from the Israeli secret service, the Shin Beit."

Describing the collaboration as an unholy alliance, he went on:

"The operation was designed to torpedo the PLO's [Palestine Liberation Organisation] standing in France and to prevent what they see as a growing rapprochement between the PLO and the Americans.

"Their nightmare is that after the November elections, one will witness the imposition in the Middle East of a Pax Americana, which will be the advantage of the PLO (who will gain international respectability and perhaps the right to establish a state on evacuated territories) and to the disadvantage of the Refusal Front (who will be squeezed right out in any overall peace settlement and will lose their raison d'etre) and Israel (who will be forced to evacuate occupied territory)."

...The document said France was being sent the message that a pro-Palestinian policy was "no guarantee" it would not be targeted by Palestinian terrorists.

Particularly if it ends in bloodshed, "the incident will have damaged the Palestinian cause with French public opinion", the document noted.

...As for the policy implications of the Entebbe saga, he concluded:

"If the incident does lead to a reappraisal of French Middle East policy (which seems unlikely), it is likely to lend weight to the arguments of those who call for an early resumption of moves leading to an overall peace settlement, including the creation of a Palestinian state on territory to be evacuated by Israel.

"Unless this is done, the indiscipline of the Palestinians will become more marked and incidents of this kind will become more frequent."