Before people start jumping on Alvaro Uribe’s back too much, bear in mind that there were reasons, if the story is true, for all of the parties to have been involved in the yearlong planning that went into rescuing Ingrid Bettancourt and other prisoners from the grasp of the FARC rebels:

“While Betancourt’s statements to the media immediately after her release acknowledged Israel’s ‘experience’ in similar situations, she did not unequivocally admit that Israel was involved in her release. Israel has never officially confirmed as much.


According to Vanguardia, Israel, France and the US participated in the operation for different reasons: France because of Betancourt’s half-French nationality, the US because of the three Americans in the group and Israel in order to maintain good bilateral relations with Colombia and the US.


Vanguardia’s Tel Aviv correspondent said the Mossad operation consisted of two agents unknown to each other separately infiltrating FARC.


The pair managed to penetrate the Marxist guerrilla group so effectively that they ultimately controlled what FARC did or didn’t know, the Catalan newspaper said.


The Israeli and US secret services used unmanned spy drones to locate the camp where the hostage were held, the Vanguardia said.”

The day after the rescue, Michael Barone at U.S. News and World Report wrote:

“On one count, Betancourt went a little too far when she said, ‘Such a perfect operation is unprecedented.’ Perhaps, but it reminds me of the Israeli rescue of 105 hostages held at the Entebbe airport in Uganda on July 3-4, 1976, a much more complex operation and one that resulted in several deaths, including that of the head of the rescue team, Jonathan Netanyahu. The Israelis relied on main force, the Colombians on stealth, but both performed brilliantly. I trust the Colombian military will not be insulted by saying that their competence and ingenuity is comparable to that of the Israeli Defense Force.”

Oh, I don’t think they’d be insulted. They likely had some excellent tutors!

(Photo by Julien M. Hekimian/Getty Images)