The terrifying – and miraculous – recent attempted hijacking of Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from the United Arab Emirates to Israel evokes images of a now long-forgotten chapter in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: plane hijackings.
Let’s take a closer look.
PLANE HIJACKINGS AND THE CONFLICT
In the 1960s and 1970s, public perceptions of the Palestinian cause became virtually synonymous with plane hijackings.
In fact, Palestinian terrorist plane hijackings are directly responsible for airport security as we know it today. In other words, yes, you have Palestinian terrorists to thank for airport security.
- In 1968, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked an El Al flight, the only successful El Al hijacking to date. After this hijacking, governments around the world realized commercial flights could be a hijacking target.
- When the PFLP hijacked a number of international flights in 1970, airline pilots threatened strikes unless governments enforced stricter security measures.
- The 1970 hijackings prompted President Nixon to deploy armed sky marshals. Then, in 1972, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) instituted rules requiring universal metal detector screenings for the first time.
WHY HIJACK?
For Palestinian terror groups, and particularly for the PFLP, plane hijackings were a calculated strategy to cause a spectacle and draw the attention of the international community to the Palestinian cause.
"Killing one Jew far away from the field of battle is more effective than killing a hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention."
George Habash, founder of the PFLP
"The plane hijackings were tactical. Just for a short time, just to ring a bell for the world and make people ask the question—why?"
Leila Khaled, PFLP
Leila Khaled is widely recognized as the first woman to hijack a commercial plane. She’s become one of the most glorified figures in the contemporary pro-Palestinian movement.
The terrorists involved in the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking intended to divert the plane to Larnaca, Cyprus, and later to Tel Aviv. As in the recent Flydubai case, a courageous Indian flight crew member saved countless lives.
Neerja Bhanot, a Hindu flight attendant, warned the cockpit that terrorists dressed as airport security personnel had taken over the plane. The cockpit crew managed to escape through an overheard hatch, leading to a 17-hour standoff. When the terrorists started hunting for American passengers (as proxies for Israelis, because there were no Israelis on the flight), Neerja hid their passports in a trash chute. She was killed from injuries sustained after she was shot at point-blank range while she guarded three children.
WHY DOES THE PRO-PALESTINE MOVEMENT GLORIFY LEILA KHALED?
Leila Khaled has, somehow, become one of the most beloved figures in the Western pro-Palestine movement, hailed as a great female “resistance fighter” or even feminist hero.
Khaled was born in Haifa in 1944 to Lebanese parents who’d migrated to the British Mandate in the 1920s. On April 13, 1948, her family fled from Haifa to Lebanon in the civil war phase of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, eight days before the Battle of Haifa and 10 days before the Haganah was victorious. There are no recorded expulsions on that date.
In her own memoir, written in 1971, Khaled expressed admiration for Hitler and admitted to her own Jew-hatred.
"At first, I admired Hitler because I thought he was the enemy of the Jews. Later I found out he classified Arabs as sub-humans, only slightly above the g*psies and the Jews."
Leila Khaled in her memoir, "My People Shall Live"
THE ENTEBBE RESCUE
On June 27, 1976, the PFLP and Revolutionary Cells, a leftist West German terror group, hijacked Air France Flight 139, headed from Tel Aviv to Paris. The flight was diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed and protected by Ugandan President Idi Amin.
In Uganda, the terrorists separated the Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers from the other passengers, the majority of which were let go. Reportedly, one of the Jewish passengers, who was a Holocaust survivor, showed one of the West German terrorists his Auschwitz tattoo. The terrorist then insisted he was “no Nazi.”
After days and days of failed international diplomatic efforts for their release, Israel approved a dangerous operation to rescue the hostages, known as Operation Entebbe (and later renamed Operation Yonatan, after Yonatan Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, who was killed as he commanded the raid).
The raid was successful, rescuing 102 of 106 hostages. In an absurd twist, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, himself a former Nazi, condemned the raid as a sovereignty violation.
9/11
The 9/11 terror attacks targeted the United States, rather than Israel. But in 2002, Osama Bin Laden wrote his notorious propaganda manifesto, “Letter to the American People,” which is not only chock full of antisemitic tropes, but directly linked his motivation for the 9/11 attacks on American support for Israel.
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, conspiracy theories regarding alleged Jewish and Israeli involvement proliferated around the globe....with the help of the father of one of the hijackers.
- A day after 9/11, the Israeli Foreign Ministry compiled a list of 4,000 Israelis believed to be in New York City and Washington DC. The purpose of the list was to be able to account for everyone. Within days, a Hezbollah-owned TV network in Lebanon alleged that the list was a list of 4,000 Israelis who had been warned not to go to work at the World Trace Center on September 11.
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On September 11, 2001, a New Jersey resident reported seeing a group of men dancing atop a delivery van while the World Trade Center burned in the background.
Shortly thereafter, the FBI arrested five Israeli men who worked for a moving company. They were held for two months, but after thorough interrogations, were cleared of having had any knowledge about the terror attack. They were then deported for visa violations.
What the conspiracy theorists leave out is that, simultaneously, the FBI arrested some 1,200 foreign nationals and deported 900 foreign nationals of other countries under similar circumstances.
The “Dancing Israelis” myth was first spread by Mohamed el-Amir Atta, father of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, to deflect from his son’s guilt.
ISRAELI HEROES
The heroism of the Israeli passengers aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 evokes memories of Daniel Mark Lewin, an Israeli-American passenger on American Airlines Flight 11.
Lewin was sitting near hijackers Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari, and Satam al-Suqami. He evidently noticed something was wrong and tried to confront al-Omari and Atta, not knowing that al-Suqami was seated right behind him.
According to flight crew that contacted airline officials from the plane, al-Suqami slashed Lewin in the throat from behind, making him the first victim of the 9/11 attacks.
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