Most of the media, like The New York Times and BBC, described the terrorist attack on the pilot on the Flydubai flight to Israel as an “altercation” between the two pilots. Some altercation. It was an attack by the Omani copilot Hamam Al-Hammani on the Indian captain Smit Machchhar with a crash axe found in the cockpit.
So why call it an altercation, as though the two got into an argument over whose pilot’s suit looks nicer? It seems that the media needed to downplay the fact that it was a case of Jihadist terror. It doesn’t fit their narrative that Jihadists are not terrorists. They are, at most, resistance fighters.
Of course, there were instant conspiracy theorists who claimed that Israel itself was behind the attack to gain sympathy in the world for its plight. Only against Israel could such a conspiracy theory gain any traction.
This is what Israel faces on a daily basis. The number of war casualties in Gaza is supplied by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. They don’t even attempt to draw a distinction between civilians and militants. They make up the number of child deaths at a whim. Tons of food supplied by Israel were hijacked by armed Hamas terrorists. But the media just accepts the grossly exaggerated reports of starvation from Hamas as though they were gospel. Remember the picture of the emaciated Gazan child in its mother’s arms on the front page of The Times? It was later discovered that the baby was suffering from a genetic disease and not from Israeli suppression of food to the Gazans.
But the easy explanation is that it’s all Israel’s fault.
Then came the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist who had a role as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and as a judge on the International Criminal Court. In her roles, she referred to the “genocide” committed by Israel and whitewashed atrocities committed by Hamas. And for this, she receives a Nobel Prize. As President Trump said, this decision has stained Norway. Again, another blow to the reputation of Israel.
Not to be outdone, Mayor Mamdani issued a statement recalling the horrors of October 7 in one brief sentence. He then spent the rest of the statement condemning Israel for genocide, killing thousands of children and journalists, plus the starvation of untold Gazans. If, in last week’s column, I wondered if Mamdani was an anti-Semite or just an incorrigible anti-Zionist, then the October 7 statement proved him to be the anti-Semite that so many accuse him of being.
Well, the media describes the attack by the Omani copilot as an “altercation.” Considering the cover-up of Israel’s enemies by its detractors, it makes a lot of sense.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.