An attempted hijacking of a Flydubai plane full of Israeli citizens has become a flashpoint in the nation’s politics as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims credit for alerting the opposition to the threat, while rivals claim he is exploiting the situation for campaign purposes.
A pilot who Israeli officials have identified as an Omani national allegedly stabbed his co-pilot while flying a plane full of Israeli citizens on Wednesday morning. Netanyahu said the pilot wanted to crash the aircraft. Passengers and crew members rushed the cockpit and stopped the hijacker before additional crew members took control and safely landed in Saudi Arabia.
Outside of campaign season, this type of incident might have been a source of unity for Israeli politicians as they confront threats some officials are alleging to have been inspired by antisemitism.
But the harrowing story only accelerated an ongoing squabble between Netanyahu and his opposition as they accuse one another of disregarding national security and exploiting the moment for political points.
Netanyahu’s initial warning
Netanyahu released a cryptic video on Tuesday warning of an “attack” planned before the national election, raising questions and accusations from his political rivals.
The video, shot on the premises of Tel Nof Air Force Base, featured the premier speaking directly into the camera as he warned Israel’s “enemies” not to go through with an unspecified attack believed to be planned ahead of the Knesset election on Oct. 27.
“There are signs that leading up to the elections, our enemies will try to attack us,” Netanyahu said in the video, speaking Hebrew. “I am sending [enemies] a message — don’t mess with us. Our long arm will reach you anywhere, and at any time.”
The warning caught opposition leaders off guard. Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar Party questioned whether the threat was genuine or simply a “political maneuver intended to harm the election system.” Multiple party leaders pressed for Netanyahu to immediately brief Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, on the situation.
After some evasion, the prime minister’s office agreed, and a meeting was held late Tuesday.
Lapid came out of the meeting blasting Netanyahu and implying the air base video was baseless. He said in a statement that “there’s no reason to put the public in a panic” characterized Netanyahu’s warning as mere “election videos.”
“Without going into details, the IDF, Shin Bet, and the police are prepared for the elections, and there is no reason to put the public into a panic,” he reported. “In any case, the elections will take place on time, and no one has an excuse to disrupt them.”
Opinion polls and voter intention surveys place Netanyahu’s coalition and Eisenkot’s coalition neck-and-neck to win the Oct. 27 elections, which are widely viewed as a referendum on the prime minister. Opponents have slammed Netanyahu’s government for failing to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, while he has accused some of those same critics of having intentionally kept him in the dark about the growing threat.
Infighting has at times prevented the anti-Netanyahu bloc from forming a cohesive image and platform, but the prime minister has himself struggled to keep together the conflicting interests of his allies, such as the Hasidic communities and supporters of Zionist expansions into the West Bank.
The complicated structure of Knesset elections means that even minor parties have the potential to become kingmaker in the event of a close result.
Flydubai incident aftermath
Netanyahu hailed the “heroes” who stormed the cockpit to prevent the Wednesday’s hijacking in his first address since the incident and revealed that Saudi authorities were interrogating the pilots.
In his video address, Netanyahu cleared up the flurry of details that had emerged about the “extremely serious security incident.”
The proximity between the security meeting and the attack was not lost on the public, and supporters of the government began drawing connections between the events. Lapid stepped forward once again to clarify that nothing in the briefing he received pertained to an airplane hijacking and accused Netanyahu’s camp of “cheap politics” following the incident.
“Nothing that even resembles this morning’s plane incident appeared in last night’s security update with the Prime Minister. Not similar, not reminiscent, not even hinted at,” Lapid said in a statement on Wednesday. “All the spin that the megaphones are doing now only proves what was already clear yesterday—that they’re once again trying to do cheap politics at the expense of Israel’s security. A reckless bunch.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz backed Netanyahu following Wednesday’s attack, criticizing “uninformed former officials at home” who did not take the “security warnings and alerts based on intelligence” seriously.
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar went even further, comparing Lapid’s “dismissal” of the security meeting to the days before the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks: “The heads of the security establishment did the same on the night of October 7, those who were appointed by Lapid and his partners in the previous government.”
Netanyahu has also faced allegations that he was told an attack was imminent ahead of Oct. 7, 2023, but did not adequately protect Israeli citizens.
PASSENGERS FROM FLYDUBAI PLANE ARRIVE IN ISRAEL AFTER RESCUE FLIGHT
All passengers who survived the Flydubai flight earlier on Wednesday landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel on Wednesday afternoon, sparking celebrations. But among the congratulations from party leaders were complaints about Netanyahu and his government’s positioning on the incident.
Lapid said Netanyahu is “trying to hitch a pathetic ride on heroic Israelis who prevented a disaster that he (once again) wasn’t prepared for.”
The Democrats’ leader, Yair Golan also fired a shot at the Netanyahu government for treating Hamas terrorism as an “asset” for its re-election campaign.
“These are the moments that remind us who we are, ordinary people who, in the moment of truth, reveal extraordinary courage. Saluting you,” Golan wrote in a statement. “And in the same breath—I despise the vile attempts by the ‘Hamas is an asset’ government to try to score cheap political points at the expense of this heroism.
Brady Knox contributed to this report.