Idi Amin on Israel, Palestinian Hijackers and the Entebbe Raid

The whole world are looking at General Amin and Uganda as a whole.

What will be the future of Uganda? The people are looking at this.

Idi Amin was president of the African nation of Uganda in the 1970s.

By the late '70s, he was notorious as a pathological psychotic killer.

Ask yourself why anyone would want to lie about him.

We look at footage from an early '70s French documentary on Amin to hear him in his own words.

Idi Amin will mention Golda Meir. She was prime minister of Israel, and he also mentions General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli defense minister at the time.

But I'm trained as a paratrooper in Israel.

But I have got a very good brain, and even General Dayan knows that I am very good field officer.

You know Dayan very well? I know him and, uh, I know him.

He has been my friend. He has been giving me dinner, lunch in his house.

If I go to Israel, I used to stay with Dayan.

He brings Air Force band playing for me.

We stay together. But I must make absolutely truth.

The reason why I chased them from Uganda was because of the economy of Uganda.

Uganda was going to be bankrupt. That is the reason why I chased away the Israelis.

And you said you were friend with Golda Meir.

Yes, because she used to give me very good entertainment when I go to Israel.

Then you changed completely from an Israeli alliance to the Arab alliance.

I changed from Israeli alliance because Israeli are criminals and they are not trusted people.

They don't tell the world the truth. They were taken to Palestine as refugees, and then they changed Palestine to become a state of Israel by force of arms given to them by Americans and the British.

Idi Amin, why would anybody want to lie about him?

I came so close to the Arab because Arab found that I am most influencing leader in Africa, in the continent, and also I am a leader who speaks the truth.

Did your Muslim religion take part into your choice of the Arabs?

It is, it is, it is, it is not because of the Muslim, because the people who broke relationship with Israel, they are not only Muslims, they are Christians, but they have seen the truth.

And everybody listen for me. And even in OAU, if I don't speak, every leader try to ask why, and I must speak like in a non-aligned conference in Algeria.

I was not feeling well. I did not speak.

But 15 minutes before the conference closed, I was brought to come and give a speech.

I gave very good speech, including Castro broke relationship with Israel after my speech.

So Idi Amin kicked the Jews out of Uganda.

He allied with the Arab world. He gave international speeches against the Israelis.

But there's more. Would you accept some Palestinian hijackers with their hostages in Uganda?

The Palestinians? Yes. I read in the papers they were asking to be sent to Uganda or to Libya.

If they are sent here, I will welcome them.

But they are welcome. In Uganda? Yes. If they want to come to Uganda, they are welcomed in Uganda.

They have got a representative. Having expelled the Israelis, General Amin installed the Palestinians in the former Israeli embassy.

But the people in some planes are innocent.

But you must not go in the airplane which is belonging to Israelis, to Portuguese, to South Africa.

If you use this airplane, then it is up to you.

You must choose because the airplane is booked in advance.

Then in 1976, he let hijackers land a jet in his country in order to exchange the jet passengers with Palestinians in Israeli jails.

In the subsequent Israeli raid on Entebbe Airport, the one Israeli soldier killed by Ugandan troops happened to be the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu.

He later became the prime minister of Israel.

Eight months after the hijacking, here's the cover of Time magazine.

In the article we read, "The prevailing sense of horror is perhaps best described by the apocryphal tale of a freezer in Amin's house that contains the heads of his most distinguished victims, including the former chief justice.

From time to time, the story goes, Amin walks over to the freezer to lecture his frozen audience about the evils of their ways."

It's not unlike the Buchenwald shrunken head story.

We've looked at the 1940s, we've looked at the 1990s, and now we're extrapolating into the 1970s.

The USA, Britain, or Israel floated stories into the population as a way to depose Idi Amin.

The reason it's important to debunk the Holocaust is because it and other stories of evil are used to justify war.