Conspiracy theories spreading on social media are suggesting the thwarted terrorist attack aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 on Wednesday was actually an elaborate “false flag” operation staged by Israel.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) told the Times of Israel (TOI) on Thursday that conspiracy posts began spreading like wildfire just over an hour after the attempted hijacking.
“What’s striking here isn’t just the volume, it’s the speed. Sixty-seven minutes is all it took for the near downing of a commercial airliner by a terrorist pilot to become fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theorists across the globe,” said ARC researcher Oliver Marks.
ARC found 2,963 posts on social media platform X claiming the thwarted hijacking was staged by Israel, Zionists, or Jews in just 12 hours. The majority of these posts contained the phrase “false flag” and it became more common as time went by.
“It’s clear this isn’t a narrative that forms in response to an incident. Rather, it’s part of a script that already exists, sitting ready for use whenever opportunities arise,” Marks said.
Another antisemitic watchdog organization called CyberWell agreed that existing antisemitic conspiracy theory narratives – which have been flourishing online ever since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorists – were easily adapted to paint the Flight FZ1073 incident as a staged event.
“These claims reflect a broader pattern of conspiratorial self-victimization, an antisemitic conspiracy that falsely accuses Jews or Israelis of orchestrating attacks against themselves to manipulate public opinion,” said CyberWell CEO TAl-Or Cohen Montemayor.
“It is a contemporary expression of Jew-hatred and a form of misinformation aimed at spreading hatred, distrust and disgust toward Jews,” he said.
“‘False flag’ conspiracy theories are particularly corrosive because they do more than deny an attack. They recast victims as perpetrators and can perpetuate violence by fueling hatred and encouraging further violence against Jews,” he added.
Montemayor warned that fast-spreading volumes of conspiratorial nonsense could feed “poisoned nonsense” into artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems that “fail to recognize these rapidly evolving forms of antisemitic conspiracy.”
Not everyone spreading these conspiracy theories is a basement-dwelling pseudonymous hatemonger. British MP Ayoub Khan said on Friday that he “smelled a rat” in the FZ1073 story, although when challenged online, he admitted he had no evidence and nothing to offer beyond hazy suspicions.
“I am genuinely shocked as to the speed of this enquiry by the Israeli spokespeople. Normally it takes them months if not years. I think I smell a rat!” Khan declared on social media – a rather absurd declaration on its face, given that Israel does not generally take “months” or “years” to investigate major terrorist attacks.
When a social media user challenged his comments and asked exactly what he was implying, Khan replied, “I don’t know.”
“Any reasonable person would wait for the black box recording; testimony of those in the cockpit! Not going to simply accept what the lying Bibi butcher of Gaza says,” he fulminated, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Khan grew defensive when Lord Ian Austin, a peer in the House of Lords, demanded an apology for his “disgraceful comment which appears to endorse crazy conspiracy theories that the Flydubai terror attack was somehow a false flag by Israel.”
“Apologize?” Khan shot back. “I wouldn’t believe a word from Netanyahu unless it came independently corroborated, double-checked and preferably notarised by the universe itself.”
Australia’s ABC News noted the conspiracy theories “spreading quickly and widely” on Wednesday, pointing to a single X post from American conspiracy theorist Jackson Hinkle that quickly accumulated over 1.5 million views.
Hinkle’s rant claimed Netanyahu staged the terror attack because he was “expected to lose” the upcoming election, so he wanted to whip up anxieties in Israel, and perhaps even create a pretext for canceling the election.
One bit of “evidence” for Hinkle’s conspiracy theory was that Netanyahu responded too quickly to the FZ1073 incident, which might be where Ayoub Khan picked up the idea.
ABC also found an A.I.-generated deepfake video posted to X a few hours after the incident, which incorporated real footage of a BBC presenter to manufacture a phony report about the Indian government supposedly teaming up with Israel to fake the terror attack.
The heroic captain who helped to thwart the attack despite suffering severe stab wounds, Smit Machchhar, is an Indian national who has been saluted for his bravery by Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The fake BBC report outlining the India-Israel conspiracy was viewed over 300,000 times before X slapped a warning message on it.
“What’s notable is how quickly it was produced, and how realistic elements of it are, including the reproduction of BBC News visual signposts and the use of a real presenter’s face and body,” ABC wrote.
Former U.S. ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman pointed out on Friday that in addition to the sheer absurdity of suggesting Israel somehow coordinated hundreds of passengers to create dozens of false eyewitness videos, and convinced both the Indian captain and Omani co-pilot to participate in a “false flag” attack, the notion that staging such an event would help Netanyahu politically is ridiculous.
“Those who say this benefits Netanyahu don’t get Israeli politics at all. A near catastrophe that occurred because of a failure to vet an Omani copilot does not help anyone in charge,” Friedman said.