I have photographed prime ministers, presidents and royalty. I know what a photo opportunity looks like. I know how carefully they are planned, how the cameras are positioned and how difficult even a supposedly simple one can be to control.
I have yet to encounter one that involves stabbing the pilot of a passenger jet and hoping everybody survives.
Flydubai flight FZ1073 was heading from Dubai to Tel Aviv when the captain was attacked by his co-pilot. The aircraft plunged thousands of feet before the injured captain managed to unlock the cockpit door. Passengers intervened, the alleged attacker was subdued and the aircraft eventually landed in Saudi Arabia. Investigations involving several countries are continuing.
My colleague Rachel O’Donoghue has already examined how parts of the media managed to turn this into a “cockpit clash” and “pilot brawl”.
Something else caught my attention.
It took 67 minutes from the aircraft’s initial distress signal for the first online accusation blaming Israel or Jews to appear, according to research by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. In the following 12 hours, it identified almost 3,000 posts attributing the incident to Israel, Mossad, Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionists or Jews.
Apparently even that wasn’t fast enough for everyone.
British MP Ayoub Khan posted that he was “genuinely shocked” by the speed of the Israeli response and added: “I think I smell a rat!”
Then I started looking through Instagram.
There it all was.
Israel’s image has gone “to shit.” The timing is suspicious. Netanyahu has an election coming. October 7 is approaching. Zionists have supposedly been predicting another 9/11.
And, inevitably:
“False flag.”
One commenter announced that cockpit doors are “designed to be impenetrable.” Another suggested that the passenger who intervened may accidentally have stopped the real plan because the aircraft “was probably supposed to crash.”
That is quite some production.
The conspirators apparently arranged an attack aboard a commercial airliner, an injured captain, a terrifying loss of altitude, passengers forcing their way into the cockpit, an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia and investigations spanning several countries.
For the record, the reinforced cockpit door isn’t the devastating clue some online detectives seem to think it is. Reuters reported that the wounded captain managed to unlock it.
There are still unanswered questions. The UAE investigation is examining motive, premeditation and whether the incident was connected to terrorist activity.
That is what investigations are for.
We’ve seen the alternative before. Within hours of the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, claims appeared that the shooting had been staged for political advantage. After Charlie Kirk was murdered, another conspiracy ecosystem eventually decided Israel was behind that too. PolitiFact found no credible evidence supporting those allegations.
Now an Israel-bound aircraft nearly falls from the sky and the process barely needs warming up.
Questions are legitimate. Evidence may change what we know about FZ1073. Investigators may discover things we don’t know today.
Conspiracy theorists have discovered a quicker method.
They fill the gaps with Israel.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
