Fifty years after the Entebbe rescue operation, the article looks at how music captured the public emotions surrounding the dramatic raid. It says songs became a kind of historical archive for the fear, hope, grief, and national relief that followed the operation.
The best known of these is "Eretz Tzvi," performed by Yehoram Gaon to lyrics by Telma Eligon-Roz and music by Dovi Seltzer. The song was written in a rush after the raid, when the makers of the feature film "Mivtsa Yonatan" asked for a theme song. Inspired by the operation, the victory, and the death of Sayeret Matkal commander Yonatan Netanyahu, it blended the Israeli landscape with a sense of mission and sacrifice. The article says Gaon's delivery gave it the stately quality that made it a fixture of Yom Hazikaron and Israeli heroism ceremonies.
A more direct soldiers' perspective came in "Tzevet Yoni," sung by Arik Lavie, with words by Herzl Golan, who had served in the unit, and music by Yigal Chered. The song describes the night flight to Entebbe, movement in the dark, Yoni Netanyahu's command of "Acharai!" and the moment he was wounded. The article calls it a musical memorial to the team and the real cost of bravery.
The operation also resonated far beyond Israel. In 1977, one year later, the American children's choir Miami Boys Choir released its debut album with the title track "Victory Entebbe," an English-language hit among Jewish communities in the United States and worldwide. The article also notes an African perspective from Uganda under Idi Amin, where exile musician Geoffrey Orme, whose father was murdered by the regime, later made music reflecting the terror of dictatorship. For Ugandan exiled musicians, the raid marked the historic humiliation of Amin before the world and inspired African folk works about liberation from fear.
