Former GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amiram Levin came under fire over the weekend for saying that then-Defense Minister Shimon Peres never met with Yoni Netanyahu, the Sayeret Matkal commando unit commander who was killed leading the 1976 raid on Entebbe International Airport that freed dozens of Israeli hostages. Levin said Peres, who later became prime minister and president and passed away on Sept. 28 at the age of 93, falsely claimed to have met Netanyahu just before the raid. Levin also belittled Peres' role in planning the raid, which was carried out a week after Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens was hijacked and taken to Uganda. However, there are many accounts confirming the two did in fact meet. The brother of Yoni Netanyahu and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iddo Netanyahu, wrote a book titled "Entebbe: The Yonatan Netanyahu Story," which includes a number of interviews, including with Peres himself. Peres told the author he had asked Yoni Netanyahu about the intelligence Israeli forces had on the hijackers, and the airport, and Netanyahu had responded, "Can you think of any operation that was carried out without the forces being half-blind [intelligence-wise]? This is the case in every operation." Peres said Yoni Netanyahu convinced him that Sayeret Matkal, along with other units, would be able to carry out the operation. When Iddo Netanyahu asked Peres whether their meeting helped make up his mind about the operation, Peres responded: "I was worried about the human toll this operation would exact, but I had no doubts that it was necessary. Despite my great concern over this, Yoni said the number of casualties was very likely to be minimal because the odds were stacked in our favor." Peres was also asked who initiated the meeting, to which he responded, "I think I asked to meet him; the meeting lasted about 45 minutes." The book cites two other sources confirming the two had met. Yoni Netanyahu's driver, Yisrael Salas, said the two met a day before the operation. He said he drove Netanyahu to the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where the IDF General Staff and the Defense Ministry are situated. Asked whether this was for a meeting with Peres, he replied: "There is no doubt. Yoni said he met the defense minister and that he [the minister] would like to present the plan to the prime minister." Asked if he could recall when the meeting took place, he responded: "He met with Peres in the afternoon. Yoni was tense and on edge, not because of the operational plans but because he felt that he was the only one [who was in favor of a raid], but he was more optimistic after the meeting with the defense minister and he felt that he would get a green light." Another source was Rachel Rabinowitz, who worked for then-Chief of Staff Mordechai (Motta) Gur. "The bureaus of the chief of staff and the Defense Ministry share the same hallway," she recalled in the book. "I saw Yoni standing next to the minister's office; he [Yoni] was clearly troubled by something, and I could see that he was in a terrible hurry. I asked somebody what he was doing there and I was told that Shimon [Peres] had asked him to come so that he could look him in the eye and ask him straight, 'Yoni, can it be done-'"
