Benny Davidson is uniquely positioned to talk about hostage trauma. On June 27th 1976, the-then 13 year old was aboard Air France Flight 139 en route from Tel Aviv to Paris with his family, when the aircraft was taken over by two Palestinian and two German hijackers.
It was forced to fly to Entebbe, Uganda where he and other Israelis and Jewish passengers, deliberately separated from everyone else, were held hostage for a week.
Supported by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the terrorists demanded the release of hundreds of militant prisoners worldwide.
At nightfall on 3 July 1976, Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, led by Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Israel’s current Prime Minister, brought the stand-off to a dramatic end. Yoni gave his life directing Operation Thunderbolt, (later renamed in his honour), ensuring the safe return of 102 of the 106 passengers and crew.
Fast forward nearly five decades and Davidson is now a 61-year old father of four from central Israel who lectures on hostage experiences all over the world.
He’s passionate about moblising global efforts to bring the remaining hostages in Gaza home.
Yoni Netanyahu was killed in the raid
He’s launched #HopeAMinute, an online campaign encouraging participants to, every day at 11:59am, upload a 60-second video of themselves wherever they are in the world, calling for the release of the remaining hostages, and posting it online to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
The aim is to create a groundswell of momentum, urgently calling on the Israeli government to make a deal to bring the 59 remaining hostages, of whom Israel has declared 32 to be dead, home.
Davidson tells Jewish News: “We were hijacked after a stopover in Athens and landed in Benghazi, Libya for a couple of hours and then continued to Entebbe. We we didn’t know that we were going to spend a week there.”
Benny and his family. Entebbe. Courtesy Benny Davidson
He says the main issue of becoming a hostage is “not just taking away your freedom, it’s taking away your ability to predict what’s going to be in the next minute, or in the next hour, or in the next day. The only thing that we did know is that on Thursday, noon time, there is a deadline, and at 12:01pm, two of us are going to get selected and get shot in the head. That was the only certainty.”
As the terrorists took control of the plane, “running forward and backward on the right and left aisle, waving guns and grenades, shouting, ‘This airplane is hijacked!’, you can imagine the terror and the fear and the screams and the shock of everybody.”
He adds: “My father took a quick look to the left towards our seats and told us, move forward a little bit; sit lower in your seats. So if a gun shoots off, you’re not getting hit. It was a short command. Very cool, not shouting, no panic, just giving us quietly a short command. I remember it as if it was yesterday.
” After several minutes, the German terrorist who took over the cockpit told us that he’s ordering his friends, comrades, as he called them, terrorists, of course, that they’re going to roam around the airplane and collect passports and flight tickets and any documents. And my father reached for his wallet, and found his Israeli Air Force combat navigator ID.”
His father had forgotten to leave it at home.
Netanyahu and his brother Ido visit the gravesite of their brother, Yoni, on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem on the 39th anniversary of the famous Entebbe rescue mission. Yoni Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid launched by special forces in rescue of over 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers. Pic: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Israel Sun 23-06-2015
“Now,” Davidson says, “a captain in the Israeli Air Force, a combat navigator, is not someone you want to fall in the hands of terrorists. So what did my father do? He tore it to four pieces. Each one of us got a piece. We continued to tear it to small papers, put it in our mouth, made small paper balls out of it, and threw it in a soft green can in the seat in front of us, and within two minutes, there was no more Israeli Air Force combat navigator on the plane.”
He credits the quick thinking actions of his parents that day from preventing him from experiencing life-long trauma and psychological scars.
“They built some sort of internal strength; resilience, translating a potential trauma into great power. And I can sum it up into two factors. One is to enable order in a chaotic situation. And that was a one hell of a chaotic situation. So the way that they responded in the initial minutes and through the whole week by telling us to build a library and be a librarian, wash the dishes, distribute food, play chess, play backgammon; whatever daily routine brings an order to a chaotic situation. Because you’re guarded by 10 terrorists and over 100 Ugandans. So you should fear for your life. But when you use daily routines, it enables you to mask, to some extent, the terror. It’s order versus chaos.”
An emotional family reunion after the return of the hijacked Air France passengers from Entebbe.
He adds: “I am not a military person. I’m not a political person, I’m not a statesman, I’m not a general, I’m not a command officer. I’m just one person with some personal experience. And there are many differences between the Entebbe affair and the current affair. But it will have to end with a deal. No questions asked. I always say that our Entebbe experience is a five star built in experience compared to what they’re going through today.”
His idea is simple: “Let’s stand for one minute. Just 60 seconds at 11:59am and take a photo or a video of ourselves with a crowd, if we are at home with our kids, if we’re in a restaurant, if we’re in the office, if we’re in a factory, if we’re in a shopping mall, if we’re in the streets. Take a photo. Use the hashtags #HopeAMinute and #UntilTheLastOne. You don’t need to write anything else. Just upload it to your social networks and go about your day.”
A-police-officer-clears-the-way-for-rescued-Air-France-hostages-returning-from-Entebbe-Airport.
Davidson, currently recruiting high schools, universities, football teams and offices to take part, says the idea gives people “a sense of closeness and togetherness in stating something that everybody is for. Do it in committees. Do it in ministries. Do it in Buckingham Palace. Wherever. That’s the whole idea. Wherever you are, whatever you do. you don’t need to dress, you don’t need to hold a placard or something. You don’t need the drums. You don’t need whistles. You don’t need anything.”
He says joining the campaign will “deliver a message of unity, that we, the people of Israel (and anywhere else worldwide), are standing for the immediate release of all of you, alive and dead. We will continue to stand until the last of you is brought back home to Israel. Have hope, stay strong. You are our brothers and sisters and your release is near.”
To join the Whatsapp group, click here.
