Terrorist disaster in the air averted
This week, we witnessed an event of historic proportions. A planned Islamist terrorist attack was averted thanks to the resolute intervention of the co-pilot and an Israeli civilian, Yaniv Hayon (a plumber by trade), who took control of the aircraft’s flight control systems approximately one minute before a fatal crash would have occurred. There were 174 passengers on board; 166 were Israeli citizens, including 30 young children.
Flydubai flight FZ1073 was in the airspace just outside the border between Jordan and Israel when the co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, attacked the captain, Smith Machar, with an emergency axe and forced the aircraft into a steep and uncontrolled descent. This resulted in a loss of altitude of approximately 14,000 feet (over 4,000 metres) in under 30 seconds, an extreme strain that caused the aircraft’s tail rudder to be damaged by the aerodynamic forces. During the descent, the seriously injured captain just managed to disengage the cockpit door’s safety lock from the inside twice before losing consciousness.
Yaniv Hayon intervened immediately: he got the captain and then the perpetrator out into the passenger cabin, where the latter was overpowered by three other Israelis. At the same time, Hayon took the pilot’s seat and pulled back on the control column to raise the aircraft’s nose. Two pilots amongst the passengers then helped to regain full control of the aircraft and miraculously managed to carry out an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Everyone on board survived, including the critically injured captain. The four Israelis administered life-saving emergency first aid and stabilised him until he could be handed over to medical staff who saved his life.
Disturbing eyewitness accounts from Israeli passengers state that some members of the crew attempted to prevent the Israelis from entering the cockpit, and demanded that the terrorist be released after he had been overpowered. The passengers refused and kept both him and the crew under control right until landing. This raises suspicions that they knew about the incident in advance.
As in previous cases, the BBC was among the first to distort Netanyahu’s statements by attributing the following claim to him:
“It is too early to say what the motive was for the air attack between Dubai and Tel Aviv, says the Israeli Prime Minister.”
Netanyahu, however, said that intelligence confirmed the incident was an act of terrorism, but noted that it remained unclear whether Iran was behind it.
Furthermore, NRK’s coverage differed markedly from the official accounts: the headline referred to the incident as a “row” between two pilots, not as an Islamist terrorist attack targeting Jewish passengers. However, the actual sequence of events was clarified by sources from both Israel and elsewhere who emphasised verifiable facts rather than a distorted account.
The willingness to commit mass murder
Yaniv Hayon is living proof of why Israel’s enemies can never win. For if the co-pilot had succeeded in his plan, the terrorist attack would have resulted in an incalculable number of fatalities, particularly if the aircraft had struck a densely populated Israeli target. Whether the primary intention was total physical destruction or a hijacking en route to Tehran is expected to be clarified in the near future, as the perpetrator has now been extradited to Dubai. There, he is subject to a judicial investigation prior to what will in all likelihood be a swift execution.
Whether this was a purely terrorist act, or whether the motive was also to destroy the good relations between Jerusalem and Dubai, remains to be seen.
This raises a fundamental question: What drives individuals to dedicate their lives to an irreconcilable hatred of Jews, solely on the basis of their ethnic and religious identity? It appears to be a cognitive and sociological paradox that highly educated professionals, as in the case of this pilot, can be radicalised to the point of viewing terrorism as a legitimate means, and be willing to sacrifice everything to annihilate Jews.
A similar question may be raised regarding those who directly or indirectly provide support to such Islamists under the false pretence of an ‘occupation’ and a ‘genocide’ that has never taken place. What mechanisms underlie the fact that these actors consistently side with the terrorists and direct their accusations solely at Israel?
Information warfare and complacency in Norway
As recently as last week, the UN held its 25th-year commemoration of the notorious and anti-Semitic Durban Conference, at which Zionism was equated with racism. It should be noted as a positive development that 45 sovereign states chose to boycott this event, but a significant number of countries nevertheless deemed it expedient not to distance themselves. Denmark and Sweden were among the nations that signalled their dissent by boycotting the event, in contrast to Norway and other states hostile to Israel. This acquiescence appears to have gone completely unnoticed in the Norwegian public discourse. It is difficult to shake off the impression that the media exclusively report on events that reinforce an established narrative of a united front against Israeli interests.
A serious example of this dynamic dates from August 2025. On Thursday this week, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) published a report backed by extensive intelligence material documenting that 170 terrorists who were formally operating under the guise of being members of the press were, in reality, active terrorist operatives.
On 10 August 2025, Norway’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Espen Barth Eide, (declared persona non grata in Israel and, at the same time, met with explicit rejection as unwelcome in leading circles in the US), an unusually sharp attack on Israel, in which he accused the state of the premeditated killing of an alleged press officer, despite the IDF’s explicit statement that there was evidence of the individual’s operational links to Hamas. The terrorist for whom Barth Eide showed such touching concern, was Anas Jamal Mahmoud Al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera correspondent who simultaneously held the role of officer in the artillery company of Hamas’s North Gaza Brigade, a Hamas cell responsible for organising and carrying out rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces.
Al-Sharif is one of the 170 ‘journalists’ whom the IDF’s report unequivocally identifies as terrorists. When he was neutralised by the IDF in Gaza on 10 August 2025, Barth Eide, in stark contrast to the available intelligence, chose to make the following statement to Aftenposten:
“The targeted Israeli attack on the high-profile Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and several of his colleagues in Gaza City is appalling and completely unacceptable.”
Within 48 hours, seven leading Norwegian press organisations had turned Barth Eide’s statement into a joint political campaign through a statement which they presented to him:
«We are now seeing journalists in Gaza being killed in targeted attacks. We cannot sit back and watch this happen …”, says Reidun Kjelling Nybø, General Secretary of the Norwegian Editors’ Association, in a statement on the situation in Gaza.
Both *Aftenposten* and Espen Barth Eide, along with the Norwegian Editors’ Association, the Norwegian Journalists’ Association, the Norwegian Press Federation, the Norwegian Media Businesses’ Association, *Fagpressen*, the National Association of Local Newspapers and the Local Radio Association – all of whom signed this shameful statement – had ample opportunity to verify al-Sharif’s true role as a terrorist for Hamas.
One is compelled to raise the fundamental question of whether Norway, like the corrupt UN apparatus, has lost its moral compass, and whether the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction, between right and wrong, between victim and aggressor, has been completely eroded.
No one can provide a satisfactory answer as to what Norway actually achieves through a one-sided hostile stance towards Israel, or what Norway stands to gain at all should the terrorist organisations the PLO and Hamas succeed in establishing their own state. The meeting in the United Arab Emirates shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the UN, where ten Arab countries took part, not only testifies to Israel’s central position both regionally and internationally, but also clearly illustrates how little Norway has gained from its efforts.
Historical resilience
Time and again, Israel’s enemies attempt to strike at the Jewish people, and time and again the Jews manage to save themselves through resolute action. The IDF’s targeted elimination of terrorists, regardless of the profession behind which they hide, and Yaniv Hayon’s resolute action, serve as confirmation of the civilian resilience and will to survive that characterise Israeli society, and emphasise that attempts to annihilate the state and its population will never succeed.
Unlike a weakened West and a UN that is leading the international community towards the abyss, Israel has so far managed to emerge victorious from its confrontations with radical Islamism in its various guises. Nevertheless, Hamas and related extremist actors are currently gaining ground in the information war against Israel.
What the Storting owes us, the Norwegian Jews, is an honest answer as to what the actual purpose of this anti-Israeli stance is.
