Israel will not be defeated
We have seen so many difficult missions by Mossad, IDF and the Israeli Airforce in the short, modern life of Israel. The latest revelation about Mossad is pretty awesome. They managed to get the original documents and Cd’s of Iran’s military nuclear program. They snatched it from inside the facilities. Iran’s leaders have not been shy, over and over they have called for the destruction of Israel. Israel is not going to sit quietly and let it happen.
The call for Israel’s destruction is nothing new. We have heard it from ancient times, through the ages until this day. Why don’t the enemies of Israel learn from the past. Israel will not be defeated! The Israel Air Forces bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981 and Syria’s Al Kibar facility in September 2007.
From the time of Nebuchadnezzar, Iraq has wanted to destroy Israel. With the help of France, Iraq built a nuclear reactor in the late 70′ and early 80’s. Iraq has oil, something very desirable for France. Saddam Hussein published a statement about the reactor: “This nuclear reactor is going to be used against the Zionist entity.” In the spring of 1981 Israel received information that seventy kilos of enriched uranium were to be shipped to the reactor in June. After that it would not be possible to attack the reactor. When then French prime minister Jack Chiraq openly said the reactor Osirak is only days away from being operational, Prime Minister Menachem Begin found himself with only one option. Operation Opera had to be carried out, sometimes called Operation Babylon. He made a decision to attack, against opposition leader Shimon Peres.
The Israeli defense Force Chief of Staff, General Rafael Ethan came to send them off on the dangerous mission. He spoke to them like a father, not a general. According to calculations, one or two planes would not return. If shot down, the pilot might not survive, if captured, he would be mercilessly tortured. Ethan said to them: “If you are captured, tell them everything you know. I just want you to come alive back to Israel.”
The brave pilots have given interviews in recent years where they describe the weight of the Jewish people on their shoulders as they were on the way to Baghdad. Zeev Raz, commander of the F-16 squadron, led the Israeli raid together with Major-General Amos Yadlin. Many of the pilots were sons and grandsons of holocaust survivors. They were flying for them. The take-off was from Etzion Air Force base in the Negev Dessert, eight F-16 planes flying in two formations, 16 pilots altogether. It was Sunday 16.01, June 7, 1981. The mission was so secret that not even the wives of the pilots knew anything. It was the first target in history of a nuclear plant. Sunday was chosen so the French technicians would have the day off and cause minimum loss of human life.
The pilots flew over Jordanian and Saudi Arabian airspace with an unthinkable altitude of 100 feet/30 meters above ground. They were heavy and overloaded from the extra fuel tanks to be able to fly the long distance. The radars were not able to see them, but the planes were flying were dangerously between ravines and valleys. At the Gulf of Aqaba they noticed a big and beautiful yacht. It was King Hussein’s boat. The pilots sitting in total radio silence, because of fear of being detected, heard a call from the yacht. King Hussein, a pilot himself, recognized the planes and quickly went into action. He was heard over a radio transmission reporting to Amman, that he had just witnessed Israeli fighter planes heading East. “The other side” on the radio confirmed the message and promised to convey it. Unfortunately for the Iraqis, it was an Arabic-speaking from the Israeli Intelligence that answered, so the warning never reached its destination.
The exact time of the raid was also carefully calculated. It was a time of changing of guards in the nuclear facility, between day shift and night shift. Moments before the attack, the personnel had also taken their dinner break. For some God-given reason the guards had turned off the radars and they knew nothing until the bombs hit the reactor. It was 6.25 in the evening. The pilots expected to be hit, but no missiles, no Iraqi jets. Only a beautiful sunset on the way back home.
After decades of silence, Israel has admitted to the strikes. Amos Yadlin tells of the feeling after they destroyed the reactor: “What is the fear of a pilot? It’s not to get killed, but to not fulfill the mission. When the plane hit the soil of Israel, he felt as if “the hand of God was guarding our path.” They had accomplished the mission to make Israel safer. No Iraqi or Saudi air plane were sent to attack them and they landed back in Israel with only drops of fuel to spare. Menachem Begin received the report: The mission was a success and all pilots returned to base.”
The mission was a secret and the pilots could tell nobody. Still the rumor spread quickly. The next morning on the way home in his car, one of the pilots picked up a hitchhiking soldier. The soldier immediately said: “Hi, you are a military major, do you know that Israel bombed Iraqi nuclear site in Baghdad last night?” The pilot said; “No, I had no idea”. Sounds like just a normal day in an Israeli pilot’s life. The wings of the Israeli fighter planes wear a white circle with the blue Star of David in the middle. For Israel, “impossible” is just a word.
Source: IAF Magazine, IAF