Heroic Israelis avert a new 9/11

If there had not been ordinary Israelis on vacation aboard that plane, with their determined and well-organized will to survive, the world today might have been facing a new 9/11 in Tel Aviv: an aircraft turned into a jihadist weapon and smashed into the ground with its 174 passengers—men, women and children, most of them Israelis.

The plane plunged 17,000 feet and continued losing altitude when it was only about 350 kilometers from Tel Aviv. The distance is crucial: The aircraft was already approaching what may have been the intended target when the Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain and apparently sought to seize control of the plane.

According to some accounts, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” and recited the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith often recited at the approach of death, before stabbing the captain and allegedly setting in motion what Israeli authorities suspect was a plan for a mass-casualty terrorist attack.

What happened next may be almost unprecedented in the history of attempted aircraft hijackings: The passengers themselves fought back, with the courageous help of the Emirati cabin crew.

A handful of Israeli passengers confronted and overpowered the alleged attacker. Photographs and videos show some of them covered in blood as they tended to the seriously wounded captain.

Crucially, another flight crew happened to be aboard as part of a routine crew arrangement. After the captain was wounded, two pilots from that crew entered the cockpit, took control of the aircraft and flew it to safety.

The aircraft was damaged during the violent jolts, and sheer luck—or perhaps a miracle—prevented an unimaginable catastrophe.

But it was a miracle made possible by people who acted.

Every Israeli knows to watch his back and to react when necessary, whether on the battlefield or amid the difficult circumstances of everyday life. On this flight, ordinary Israelis suddenly found themselves facing an extraordinary threat and became the heroes who may have prevented another Sept. 11.

The jungle of baggage and document checks, the labyrinth travelers have faced at airports around the world for decades, has its own long history of terrorism. The 1972 Lod Airport massacre, in which 26 people were killed, was one of the attacks that demonstrated how vulnerable civilian aviation had become.

It is extraordinarily difficult to prevent mass-suicide terrorism conceived in the mind of a fanatic or a disturbed individual. In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged into the Atlantic with 217 people aboard. U.S. investigators concluded that relief first officer Gameel Al-Batouti deliberately caused the crash, repeatedly uttering words translated as “I rely on God,” although Egyptian authorities rejected that conclusion.

There have been other cases of madness, fanaticism or unexplained catastrophe. Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed an Airbus into the French Alps in 2015, killing all 150 people aboard. In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people aboard, its fate still the subject of investigation and debate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned—while being criticized, as usual, by the opposition—of the possibility of unusual acts of aggression during these days.

Unfortunately, the backdrop is now twofold.

On the one hand, there are warnings of possible attacks against Jews and Israelis traveling abroad during the Sukkot holiday. Iran continually threatens Israelis and Jews around the world, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has reinforced that message in recent days.

And now, amid rampant antisemitism, there is also the unpredictability of radicalized individuals who have come to believe that attacking Jews is an act of political or religious purity, or even of justice.

Israel is on alert. Saudi Arabia, where the Israeli survivors waited after their emergency landing, did not permit Israeli aircraft to enter to collect them and is holding those responsible for the incident.

There is another striking symbolism here.

The alleged attacker was Omani. Oman has close relations with Iran, which maintains a strategic interest in the country because of its position overlooking the Strait of Hormuz and the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The captain he allegedly attacked, by contrast, is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates—a friendly Arab country that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel.

And this was a flydubai flight linking Dubai and Tel Aviv, itself an everyday expression of the new relationship between Israel and part of the Arab world.

On that aircraft, the contrast could hardly have been sharper: an alleged attacker apparently seeking destruction and an Emirati crew working alongside Israeli passengers to save lives. The passengers fought. The cabin crew helped them. Other pilots took control. Arabs and Israelis together prevented catastrophe.

Anyone can board a plane. Anyone can enter and leave. The skies are vast, difficult to control and dangerous—and not only for Israel.

The jihadist target has never been Israel alone. The West has repeatedly been a target, and civilian aviation offers terrorists a uniquely horrifying weapon.

Mohamed Atta, one of the planners and perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, was an educated young man who had lived and studied in Germany. Nothing about an ordinary outward appearance reveals what may be taking shape inside a radicalized mind.

The Houthis, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the malign influences emanating from Iran and elsewhere are filling the skies with clouds.

But this time, disaster did not strike.

This time, ordinary Israelis refused to become victims. Together with an Arab crew from a country that chose peace with Israel, they fought back—and a new 9/11 was averted.

© JNS.