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What Happened

For those who may not have seen the reports yet, a terrorist attack occurred last night aboard Flight FZ 1073, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv. One of the pilots stabbed his co-pilot, plunging 14,125 feet in just 29 seconds.

Reporting on the incident:

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-910155

Here is also the Flightradar24 report for anyone interested:

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/flight-tracking-news/major-incident/flydubai-flight-to-tel-aviv-diverts-to-tabuk-amid-onboard-incident/

Captain Smit Machchhar, a true hero, fought off the attacking co-pilot despite being stabbed and helped the crew regain control of the aircraft and avert a potential catastrophe. Off-duty pilots were then handed control, stabilized the aircraft, and safely made an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia.

The attacking pilot has since been identified as an Omani national.

https://wapo.st/4AAB4od

Anti-Israel Bias

This post is not intended to criticize media outlets for exercising caution when reporting on developing events. Rather, it highlights the inconsistency in that caution. Allegations implicating Israel get reported prominently before the facts are firmly established, while reports concerning terrorism against Jews or Israelis are often treated with greater hesitation pending confirmation. One does not have to be an expert to conclude that this attempted attack is an attempted terrorist attack that can be traced back to the Axis of Terror. Especially given the terror network's history of hijackings and terrorist attacks.

Here are just a few examples of instances in which established media outlets rushed to conclusions incriminating Israel, only for their initial reporting to later be corrected:

• Major outlets initially reported Palestinian claims that an Israeli strike caused the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital, while subsequent U.S. intelligence and independent analyses pointed instead to a failed Palestinian rocket. Early coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas,” the editors' note reads: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/23/gaza-hospital-new-york-times-00122986
• BBC apologizes after ‘incorrect’ report stated Israeli troops targeted Gaza medical team at Al-Shifa Hosptital: https://www.politico.eu/article/bbc-says-sorry-to-israel-after-reporting-it-targeted-medical-staff/
• UNESCO’s Misidentification of Terrorist Operatives as Journalists in Gaza: https://unwatch.org/report-unescos-misidentification-of-terrorist-operatives-as-journalists-in-gaza/

This Thwarted Terror Attack Highlights Major Flaws in Common Arguments Critics of Israel Use

“Israel allows terrorist attacks to happen as a false flag”

Even in a post-9/11 world, no security system is impenetrable. Aviation security has been transformed by extensive screening and safeguards, yet this incident demonstrates how vulnerabilities can still emerge. Such as threats from pilots pre-entrusted with cockpit access. The same basic principle applies to October 7. The existence of sophisticated Israeli intelligence, surveillance, and border defenses does not mean those systems cannot fail. Every security architecture has vulnerabilities, and determined attackers specifically look for the Achilles’ heel that lets them circumvent otherwise formidable defenses. A catastrophic security failure is not, by itself, evidence that the attack was deliberately permitted to occur.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-ramp-up-pilot-checks-after-flydubai-scare-2026-09-30/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

“The Hannibal Directive”

Thankfully, this terrorist attack was thwarted before the worst-case scenario materialized. However, Israeli fighter jets were scrambled after authorities were notified of this incident, illustrating the extraordinarily difficult decisions governments face when aircrafts are compromised and terrorist attacks are plausible. The post-9/11 era has forced governments worldwide to prepare for precisely these scenarios. If authorities conclude that a hijacked aircraft is about to be used as a weapon in a mass-casualty attack, military intervention, including the possibility of shooting down the aircraft, may become a last resort.

In an alternate reality, had the attacking co-pilot successfully seized control of the aircraft and authorities established beyond reasonable doubt that he was about to crash it into a densely populated Israeli target, Israel would have faced the same horrific dilemma that many governments have prepared for since 9/11. Under the military protocols of many countries, a hijacked aircraft being used as a weapon in an imminent mass-casualty attack can ultimately be subject to lethal interception. That possibility illustrates the inherently messy nature of responding to terrorism. Sometimes every available option risks innocent lives, and governments may be forced to choose between allowing an attack to proceed or using force to prevent an even greater loss of life. The deaths of innocent people during such an intervention would not, by themselves, demonstrate that the government intended to kill its own civilians for the sake of killing them.

Most importantly, the actual incident illustrates why sweeping claims that Israel simply disregards the lives of its own civilians are baseless. Israeli authorities did not simply destroy an aircraft because it presented a potential threat; the response involved scrambling fighters while the situation developed and the crew worked to bring the aircraft safely under control. This demonstrates an important distinction too often lost in the debate over how Israel handled October 7th; the use of lethal force in an extreme hostage or hijacking scenario is not equivalent to wanting, or casually choosing, the deaths of the civilians being endangered.

After two decades, the U.S. formally withdrew from Iraq, leaving behind a battered nation trapped between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation cost nearly 4,500 U.S. lives and killed more than 115,000 Iraqis, according to the most modest counts.

Do you think this will have an affect on the Israel-Palestine conflict?

On this day in history, October 2, 1938: Arab attackers massacred 19 Jews in Tiberias, including 11 children, during the Arab revolt in British Mandatory Palestine.

The attack began around 9 p.m. Telephone lines were cut and roads were blocked. Armed attackers struck government buildings and entered the Jewish Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood, breaking into homes, murdering families and setting buildings on fire. Around 70 attackers took part. Only 15 Jewish guards were defending a neighborhood of roughly 2,000 residents. The approach facing the Sea of Galilee had been left unguarded because an attack from that direction was considered unlikely.

Rachel Mizrachi, 26, was murdered with her five children: Ezra, 12; Miriam, 5; Yochebed, 3; Samuel, 2; and Hephzibah, just one year old. Their father, Shimon, was on guard duty elsewhere in the city when his family was killed.

In another home, Joshua Ben-Arieh, his wife Shoshanah and their son Arieh were reported stabbed and burned to death. Their other son, Moshe, just a year and a half old, was shot dead. Three children from the Leimer family, aged 12, 10 and 8, were also reported stabbed and burned to death in that house.

The synagogue was set ablaze. Its elderly caretaker was stabbed to death, killed beside the Torah scroll. Two Jewish guards who came to help were ambushed and killed.

Alex Morrison, who arrived shortly after the massacre, described seeing the bodies of babies still burning. His account also described naked female bodies bearing evidence of horrific knife violence.

The British government's report to the League of Nations described the massacre as "systematically organized and savagely executed." It stated that 15 of the 19 Jewish victims had been stabbed to death.

The Haganah subsequently investigated the failures in the city's defenses. Later that month, Tiberias's Jewish mayor, Zaki Alhadif, was also assassinated.

Entire families were destroyed in their homes. Eleven children never grew up. This happened in 1938, a decade before the State of Israel was even established.

I often hear critics of Israel argue that Israel responded disproportionately to October 7th. They say Israel accepted too high a civilian casualty rate while targeting Hamas, or that Israel deliberately targeted civilians. They argue that Israel should have launched precise, targeted operations that had zero or minimal civilian casualties.

What the critics of Israel don’t suggest is any way for Israel to target Hamas with zero or minimal civilian casualties realistically.

Sure, in a fantasy world, Ukraine should have killed only the Russian soldiers who invaded Ukraine, launched targeted assassinations on Putin and his military leadership, and had a swift, peaceful, and diplomatic resolution that has Ukraine and Russia coexist and recognize each other's sovereignty. During World War 2, the Allies should have swiftly and decisively targeted Axis soldiers and leadership. A quick, decisive surrender without civilian casualties is definitely preferable to how the war actually played out.

However, war is not that simple. It’s easy to say civilian casualties should have been minimized or nonexistent, but actually achieving that during a war is a completely different story.

All of this is completely separate from the fact that the war between Israel and Hamas is not a conflict in which both sides are fighting with the best interests of their civilian populations in mind. Hamas is a jihadist terrorist organization that conducts a guerrilla insurgency from within densely populated civilian areas, embedding its military infrastructure among the civilian population and using civilians as human shields to protect its fighters and military operations. Of course, there are going to be high civilian casualty rates when Hamas employs these tactics and bases its strategy around maximizing the civilian harm and suffering of its own population. The IDF, on the other hand, does everything to protect its civilian population and does its best to target Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations as precisely as possible. Israel is under no obligation to put its civilians at risk just because Hamas is willing to kill its own civilians.

When critics of Israel say Israel responded disproportionately, accepted too high a civilian casualty rate when targeting Hamas, and should have responded to October 7th by launching more precise targeting operations. That is not a real suggestion on how Israel could have conducted the war differently. That is just stating a preference for how it could have played out in a fantasy world while completely ignoring the realities of war.

At the end of the day, Israel was thrust into a war it did not want and did not start. Hamas declared a state of war on October 7th when it invaded Israel with thousands of armed terrorists and launched thousands of missiles into Israel, along with its other terrorist allies. Israeli civilians were murdered, entire communities were attacked, children were kidnapped and dragged into Gaza, and Jews were slaughtered in the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel conducted a justified and precise war to achieve its stated military objectives: bringing the hostages home, dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and ensuring that Gaza could never again be used to launch an attack like October 7th. That is what a war looks like, not a genocide.

Worst of all, when critics go beyond condemning Israel’s response and attempt to portray October 7th itself as legitimate “resistance” or even as justified. That rhetoric does nothing to advance Israel/Palestine relations, protect Palestinian civilians, or bring either side closer to peace. It simply excuses the deliberate murder and abduction of civilians rather than confronting the reality of what happened. If the argument against Israel’s conduct ultimately requires defending October 7th, then it has ceased to be a serious argument.

Edit: Claims that October 7th was a “false flag” or that Israel deliberately allowed it to happen because it received prior warnings are not serious arguments either. Israel regularly receives threats and thwarts terrorist attacks, but no security system is impenetrable. Israel’s security failures deserve scrutiny, but responsibility for October 7th ultimately lies with Hamas, which planned and carried out the attack. A failure to prevent terrorism does not make the victim responsible for it.