France: AFP corrects: Entebbe hijackers singled out Jews, not just Israelis

CAMERA reports:

CAMERA's Israel office prompted correction of an Agence France Presse article last week which incorrectly reported that the Entebbe hijackers singled out Israeli passengers. In fact, the terrorists singled out Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers.

In fact, not all non-Israel passengers were released. Jews who did not hold Israeli citizenship were also not released. All non-Jewish passengers were released.

The April 6 article had originally erred about the July 1976 hijacking: "By the time the [Israeli] commandoes arrived, all non-Israeli passengers had been released by the hijackers, leaving about 100 Israelis and crew members aboard." (Emphasis added.)

But, as AP correctly reported July 12, 2015:

The hijackers, two Palestinians and two Germans, then separated about 100 Jewish and Israeli passengers from the rest and threatened to kill them if Israel did not free dozens of Palestinian prisoners. A feverish week of negotiations followed.

The Washington Post likewise reported Sept. 18, 2014:

Virtually everyone was freed except for 106 Israelis and Jews and the non-Jewish captain who were held as hostages, a separation that haunted a nation founded after the genocide of the Holocaust.

The Guardian reported Feb. 27, 2008:

The separation of Jewish passengers from among the hostages particularly alarmed the authorities in Jerusalem.

Following communication from CAMERA staff that day, AFP commendably corrected and refiled the story. The corrected article states: "By the time the commandoes arrived, non-Israeli and non-Jewish passengers had been released by the hijackers, leaving about 100 hostages." (Emphasis added.)

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