The sane world is praising Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar, whose bravery helped save a Flydubai flight carrying 180 people, mostly Israeli Jews, headed to Israel’s Tel Aviv from an Islamic terror attack by the Jihadist Omani co-pilot Hamam-al-Hammami on 30th September. However, the global Islamo-leftist coterie is peddling opprobrious conspiracy theories. In a video published by Germany-based YouTuber-propagandist Dhruv Rathee amplified the Islamist conspiracy theory that the foiled Flydubai Islamic terror attack was a false flag operation orchestrated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for influencing public opinion in his favour ahead of elections.
In a short video published on his Instagram and social media pages, Dhruv Rathee spoke about Captain Smit Machchhar’s bravery and how, despite being stabbed and wounded, the Indian pilot opened the cockpit door a second time so passengers and off-duty crew could overpower the Omani pilot.
However, Dhruv Rathee pivoted from recounting Captain Machhar’s heroic actions and resorted to amplifying the Islamist conspiracy theory that the entire “hijacking incident” was a false-flag operation that Israel itself executed.
Playing the legacy media trick of adding a question mark to a statement to push a narrative without having to worry about responsibility and accountability, Dhruv Rathee first amplified the false-flag conspiracy theory, then conveniently added the ‘question mark’: “whether these claims are true or not will only be revealed after investigation”. The trick, perhaps, was to praise the person who prevented the attack while floating the idea that the jihadi attack itself was a politically motivated theatre.
“But in this hijacking incident, many other questions are also arising whose answers we still do not know. Now the question is, how did a co-pilot smuggle a knife inside the aeroplane? Some people are even alleging that this entire hijacking incident was a false-flag operation, that Israel itself got it done, because elections are going to be held in Israel in one month… elections where it will be decided whether Netanyahu becomes prime minister again or not. To know the answers to all these questions, we wait for the investigation to be completed, and we see what else comes to light next,” Rathee said.
Firstly, the Jihadi Omani Muslim pilot did not attack Captain Smit Machchhar with a smuggled knife but with the cockpit crash axe. This axe is standard emergency equipment already in the flight deck.
Secondly, it was not a hijacking incident. UAE Attorney General Hamad Al Shamsi stated on 3rd October that the Omani co-pilot “attempted to carry out a terrorist act”. Hamam or Hammam al-Hammami planned to crash the Flydubai plane at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport.
It is notable that before Dhruv Rathee, Arfa Khanum Sherwani from the leftist propaganda rag The Wire had insinuated that the Flydubai terror attack was a false flag operation. She wrote on X, “The ‘world-famous’ Israeli propaganda machine is on fire and Indian audiences seem only too eager to consume whatever it serves up, no questions asked. Guess why?” By saying this, she attempted to dismiss the verified terror attack as mere Israeli propaganda.
The ‘world-famous’ Israeli propaganda machine is on fire and Indian audiences seem only too eager to consume whatever it serves up, no questions asked. Guess why?
— Arfa Khanum Sherwani (@khanumarfa) October 1, 2026
Meanwhile, crowdfunding scam-accused ‘journalist’ Rana Ayyub, who wrote, “The Indian right wing’s love affair with Israel and Netanyahu is ultimately rooted in one thing: its visceral hatred of Muslims. Their admiration for Modi and Netanyahu comes from the same impulse- leaders who will subjugate Muslims, and “show them their place” in the world.”
The Indian right wing’s love affair with Israel and Netanyahu is ultimately rooted in one thing: its visceral hatred of Muslims. Their admiration for Modi and Netanyahu comes from the same impulse- leaders who will subjugate Muslims, and “show them their place” in the world.
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) October 1, 2026
The false-flag theory, Israel’s election dynamics, and why it makes no sense
The false-flag conspiracy theorists say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arranged the false-flag operation on the Flydubai flight for electoral gains amid supposed dwindling domestic popularity. The question arises: how would the crashing of a flight carrying Israeli civilians have benefited Netanyahu and his Likud party in the elections? Do they suggest that the plan was to frame the supposed false-flag operation as an Islamic terrorist attack carried out at Iran’s behest, to rally united national support for PM Netanyahu against Iran?
For that to be true, PM Netanyahu would have to be the director and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad the scriptwriter, while Flydubai, Captain Smit Machchhar, Omani terrorist pilot al-Hammami, the UAE government, and even the Saudi authorities would have to be actors.
This is because neither the UAE government, the Saudi government, nor the Israeli investigations support staging or false-flag claims. Thus, the ‘planted actors’ or ‘fake plunge’ theory sounds more like a coping mechanism against the fact that the flight didn’t crash than a credible claim.
Flydubai is a UAE airline; the aircraft left Dubai; the terrorist co-pilot was an Omani national born in the UAE; the plane diverted to Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk. Neither Israel owns the airline, crew the cockpit, nor it is conducting the investigation. The UAE judicial authorities have jurisdiction over the Flydubai incident because the aircraft is registered in the UAE and flies under its flag. The Emirati authorities have said that UAE law applies to crimes committed on board “even if they occur outside the country’s territory.”
Indian captain Smit Machchhar suffered life-threatening axe blows to his head and his wounds were bleeding profusely when he opened the door from the floor for the second time as the Omani terrorist reclosed the cockpit door when Machchhar opened it, and passengers and off-duty crew tied the attacker with headphone cables and zip ties.
The Flydubai flight FZ1073 dropped from about 34,000 to 17,000 feet, squawked 7700 and then 7500, and lost part of its rudder. Staging that, on a foreign carrier, with a wounded non-Israeli pilot and Saudi and Emirati authorities in the loop, would be too absurdly a leaky plot for a country like Israel to pull off.
Also, if we go by the ‘blame Iran’ angle, wouldn’t it have made a more profound impact on Israeli citizens and handed maximum political mileage by stoking nationalist sentiments if the plane had actually crashed with Israeli passengers on board? And yet, if it assumed that it was indeed a false flag, why did Israel’s ‘planted actor’ Captain Smit Machchhar not let the Omani co-pilot play his part in full? Why would Captain Machchhar sign up for an operation wherein his death was certain?
Even though a photo opportunity for a political leader in any country is an irresistible delight, if we look at the election dynamics in Israel, despite a drop in popularity, Netanyahu’s incumbent coalition, which includes Likud party, the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, athe nd the Haredi parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, remain stable.
While the rise of former Israeli Defense Forces remainsGadi Eisenkot’s new centrist Yashar party, Naftali Bennett’s Together, Yair Golan’s Democrats, and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu are consolidating the anti-Netanyahu bloc, polls give Netanyahu a narrow edge over his political opponents. It must be noted that Netanyahu’s personal popularity is not collapsing, but his coalition partners and the electoral arithmetic do not provide a clear path to form government again.
Does this mean the Netanyahu-led bloc’s defeat in the coming elections is certain? No. There are three possibilities: a deadlock, a unity arrangement, or a second round.
Given that Israelis have lived through several wars and election cycles since 2019. Whether successful or unsuccessful, a single Flydubai-like security scare will not miraculously turn all Israeli voters in Netanyahu’s favour.
This whole false flag imagination stems from the Islamo-leftist tendency of refusing to accept or believe that a country or a group of people they oppose or hate can be victims of the crimes committed by religiously or ideologically aligned groups or individuals. When Islamists attack Kafirs, it is labelled as ‘resistance’. When circumstances allow, Islamic terror attacks are portrayed as ‘false flag’ operations.
This is, perhaps, the reason why the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas is called ‘resistance’ by the Islamo-leftists, who even celebrated the horror since the victims were Israelis, particularly because they were Jews. But an Omani Muslim Jihadi’s plane crashing attempt is conveniently labelled as a ‘false flag’ operation and linked to electoral gains, and other ridiculous conspiracy theories.
This Islamo-leftist pattern is not restricted to Israel’s Netanyahu alone, but extends to India’s Narendra Modi, another political leader the global Islamist cabal abhors.
The false flag parallel in India
The same Islamo-leftist template—terror attack by any Islamic jihadi group or individuals, immediate “false flag by the right-wing or Islamophobic government for elections claim, and amplification by media and social media players, has been witnessed in India.
Back in February 2019, the Pakistan-based Islamic terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed the suicide bombing by one Adil Ahmad Dar, that killed 40 CRPF personnel. A section of Indian opposition leaders, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Islamo-leftists online, claimed that the Pulwama attack was a false-flag operation staged by the Modi government to exploit it in his favour for the impending Lok Sabha elections that year. They even tried to give a clean chit to Pakistan and the terrorists involved.
The anti-Modi sentiment and the fear of getting wiped out from the political spectrum ahead of the 2019 general elections were so deep-rooted in the opposition leaders that they went on to accuse Modi of executing this brutal attack for BJP’s political gains. Many of them also questioned the role of the armed forces during this attack. Others questioned the air strike by the Indian Air Force in Balakot after this attack.
A redux of this ‘false flag’ bogey was seen after the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, when Pakistan was joined by Islamo-leftist journalists and notorious Modi detractors in labelling the attack carried out by Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot The Resistance Front by singling out and shooting Hindu men at point-blank, as a false flag operation to milk electoral benefits in the Bihar and other state assembly elections.
From Pulwama, Pahalgam to the Flydubai attack, Islamists and their leftist allies conveniently use political calendar as proof of ‘false flag’ orchestration and thereby deflect attention from the Jihadi attacker’s ideology and hatred against non-Muslims.
