Netanyahu on Flydubai Claims, caveats and checks

Oct 25–26, 2018

In his complete Fox & Friends appearance, Benjamin Netanyahu recounts the Flydubai cockpit attack and passenger intervention. He says the attacker underwent radical Islamist indoctrination and asked to be killed after restraint, but corrects his initial certainty about a crash attempt to likelihood and says no final conclusion has been reached. Asked about shouted religious slogans, he says he does not know what was said before restraint and reports no such account. He credits Yaniv and other passengers with removing the attacker, pulling the controls, restraining him with headphone cords, treating the wounded Indian captain and calming passengers; off-duty pilots then helped land the aircraft. He describes serious head and arm wounds and praises the rescuers' teamwork. Netanyahu acknowledges a loophole in restrictions on pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel and pledges advance screening and tighter security with Emirati cooperation. He cites alleged Iranian/proxy threats during the election season and recalls asking Israelis to be alert, but says the weapon, radicalization source, Iranian connection and Omani cooperation remain unresolved. Recalling his airport meeting the previous day, he says he asked a rescuer's wife to preserve the bloodstained clothes. He recounts Sultan Qaboos's invitation to Muscat with his wife, characterizes that visit as related to Gulf normalization and speculates Oman might have joined the Abraham Accords had Qaboos lived; he calls the succeeding leadership standoffish. Correcting Brian Kilmeade, he says he did not participate at Entebbe: his brother led the rescue and was its sole military casualty. He separately recalls being wounded while his unit, disguised as mechanics, stormed a hijacked Belgian aircraft in Israel after a prisoner-release threat. Asked how close Israel came to intercepting the Flydubai aircraft, he declines details and discusses the difficult decisions posed by unidentified passenger aircraft.

At Sultan Qaboos's invitation, Benjamin Netanyahu visits Muscat with his wife. Recalling the visit in his October 1, 2026 interview, Netanyahu describes an official, publicly acknowledged contact and characterizes it as a beginning of expanded Gulf normalization. He speculates that Oman could have become another Abraham Accords partner had Qaboos lived and describes the succeeding leadership as standoffish. These are his retrospective diplomatic assessments, not a finding that Oman joined the accords.