The new film "Sabena," about the May 1972 hijacking of Sabena Flight 571, premiered at Cinema City in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in attendance. As a young Sayeret Matkal commando, Netanyahu was wounded in the rescue operation that freed that flight's passengers. "No one should doubt Israel's determination to defend itself," Netanyahu said at the premiere. "What was true then [in 1972] is also true now." After the screening, Netanyahu and two former prime ministers who also played roles in the Sabena operation -- Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres -- participated in a special panel discussion. Barak was the commander of the force that stormed the plane and Peres was then transportation minister. Along with then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Peres was at Lod Airport (now Ben-Gurion International Airport) to oversee the dramatic rescue operation. Sabena Flight 571, carrying 101 passengers and crew from Vienna to Tel Aviv, was hijacked by four Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group on May 8, 1972. After the plane landed at Lod Airport, the hijackers demanded the release of more than 300 Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel and threatened to blow up the plane if their demand was not met. Dayan engaged the hijackers in negotiations while the rescue operation was planned. On the afternoon of May 9, Sayeret Matkal commandos, dressed up as airplane technicians in overalls, stormed the plane, killing two hijackers and capturing the other two. Netanyahu was shot in the shoulder during the operation. At Tuesday's panel discussion, Barak said, "The operation was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Terrorism has not stopped, it has continued to this very day, but since the operation no plane has been hijacked and taken to Israel. The main lesson is that you must be bold in the fight against terrorism. It's been asked whether such an operation would be possible today. The answer is no, because history does not repeat itself. But we must retain the unyielding spirit of the decision makers and fighters [who took part in the operation]." Referring to his wound, Netanyahu said, "Sabena was a painful experience for me. The toughest moment was when I stood on the wing [of the aircraft]. We hit the door and it flew open, with bullets whizzing around us. We entered the plane and saw a wounded woman lying on the ground [Marie Holzberg, the lone passenger to be killed in the operation]. We stepped over her and the battle began. The biggest fear was that the terrorists would set off explosives and the second [fear] was that we would kill the passengers. "After I was wounded, I lay on the asphalt and I saw from afar a figure running toward me and I realized it was my brother Yoni [also a Sayeret Matkal commando, who would be killed four years later during the Entebbe operation]. He had a worried face as he saw I was wounded. I lay there in my bloodstained overalls and he then smiled at me and said, 'You see, I told you that you shouldn't have [take part in the operation].' "The most important thing is that Sabena was the first operation in which a force stormed a hijacked plane. The terrorists understood this and that is why [they never brought a hijacked plane to Israel again]. Over time, airplane hijacking became a phenomenon around the world. "Terrorism is ongoing," Netanyahu said. "We know that terrorism today is much more widespread [than it was four decades ago]. It emanates from terrorist states and disintegrating state entities that remind us of the Dark Ages. The most vital thing is that we demonstrate determination and boldness in the face of our enemies."
