JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Antisemitic conspiracy theories blaming Israel and Jews for an attempted hijacking of a Tel Aviv-bound flydubai flight appeared online within 67 minutes of the aircraft’s first distress signal, according to researchers who tracked the claims as they spread across X.
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The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center said the first post casting the Sept. 30 incident as an Israeli “false flag” was recorded at 2:28 p.m. Eastern time. Over the next 12 hours, the center identified 2,963 posts attributing the attack to Israel, the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionists or Jews. Those posts drew at least 30,000 likes and 3 million views, the group said.
About 1,000 hostile posts were logged within five hours. Of 4,136 posts the center tracked that used the phrase “false flag,” roughly 72% advanced claims blaming Israel or Jews. That share rose to 81% and 82% in the final two hours of monitoring.
“What’s striking here isn’t just the volume, it’s the speed,” Oliver Marks, a research associate at the center, said. “Sixty-seven minutes is all it took for the near downing of a commercial airliner by a terrorist pilot to become fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theorists across the globe.”
Marks said the claims did not appear to form in response to new facts. “It’s clear this isn’t a narrative that forms in response to an incident,” he said. “Rather, it’s part of a script that already exists, sitting ready for use whenever opportunities arise.”
A separate review by CyberWell, a nonprofit that tracks antisemitism on social media, found the same pattern: posts alleging that Israelis had staged or carried out the attack themselves. Chief executive Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor said the claims “reflect a broader pattern of conspiratorial self-victimization” that “falsely accuses Jews or Israelis of orchestrating attacks against themselves to manipulate public opinion.”
She called the narrative “a contemporary expression of Jew-hatred and a form of misinformation aimed at spreading hatred, distrust and disgust toward Jews.” Both groups said similar campaigns have followed major attacks on Israelis since Hamas’ assault on Oct. 7, 2023.
The flight, flydubai FZ1073, was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday with about 174 people aboard when the co-pilot, identified by Israeli officials as an Omani national, allegedly stabbed the captain and tried to seize the aircraft. The jet plunged nearly 14,000 feet before the wounded captain, Indian national Smit Machchhar, and passengers and crew forced the cockpit door open and restrained the attacker. The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Passengers later reached Israel. The suspect has not been publicly named and remained in Saudi custody.
Netanyahu said Thursday that investigators had found the co-pilot “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.” An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the suspect’s social media accounts showed jihadist radicalization and included talk of killing Jews, and that he asked crew members to kill him after he was subdued. Defense Minister Israel Katz has described the episode as an attempted jihadist terror attack. The United Arab Emirates is leading the formal inquiry. Officials have not publicly concluded whether the suspect acted alone or had outside direction, including any link to Iran.
Israeli authorities have also questioned how an Omani pilot was assigned to a Tel Aviv route. Oman and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, and Israeli rules generally bar pilots from countries regarded as unfriendly from flying into the country.
we need an active shomrim in this area. Jews need to learn self-defense and synagogues must have security guards Antisemitism is rampant. I KEEP WARNING YOU. RABBI DR. BERNHARD
ROSENBERG COURAGE IS A CURRENCY. USE YOUR COURAGE TO SPEAK UP FOR JEWS AND FOR ISRAEL. KNOW YOUR HISTORY. BE PROUD
There must be some way for computer experts to recognize organized bot posts and who is behind them.
Until Jews start to get trained in self defense weapons handling and stop wringing our hands and lamenting what’s happening. It will continue. Bully’s only understand one thing a bloody nose or worse
Nobody should be surprised at these postings by the kinds of individuals, whom Trump describes as “whack jobs”. The identical postings appeared after 9/11/01, which stated among other things that the demolition of the Twin Towers was “an inside job”, coordinated by the U.S. Government and the Mossad. One Arab official actually stated that he couldn’t believe that Arabs were responsible for 9/11, as he stated that “they didn’t have the brains to pull something like that off, and only the Mossad could have done that”. In any event, regarding the blaming of Jews for everything, I’d like to mention a book written by Simon Wiesenthal, the famed Nazi hunter, which I read recently. I can’t remember the name of the book. Wiesenthal stated that he was on a train in Austria, in a reserved seating compartment, when all of a sudden a young Austrian, who was also assigned to that compartment, came in with a newspaper. After a few minutes, he struck up a conversation with Wiesenthal, about some articles that he read in his paper about certain economic problems, which were facing Austria. Out of the blue, the Austrian started blaming the Jews in Austria, for all of the economic and social ills in Austria. The guy starting ranting for at least fifteen minutes. Finally, Wiesenthal had enough and interrupted that character. He stated to the anti-semite, “Tell me, since you seem to be so familiar with Jews, and what they are allegedly responsible for, have you ever met a Jew in your entire life”? The Austrian looked surprised, and told Wiesenthal “I could tell if I am near Jews, and further, I wouldn’t be caught dead, associating with any Jew, or even be within hundreds of feet of a Jew.” Wiesenthal stated, “That’s odd, you’ve been seated near to a Jew for at least fifteen minutes, with your unfounded and stupid allegations about Jews”. The Austrian almost plotzed, turned red, and his eyes bulged. He got up, took his luggage, and started screaming for the conductor to assign him to another seat. Wiesenthal chuckled, as he had the last laugh.