Crazies call hijacking a ‘false flag,’ not a miracle

While judicious newsies delayed calling it a jihadist hijacking until the facts were clear, crazies waited only 67 minutes before letting loose their insane antisemitic conspiracy theories.

A pilot is stabbed by the co-pilot and the plane plunges thousands of feet in seconds; passengers storm the cockpit and a plumber pulls the plane out of its dive; a reserve crew member helps save the flight, with the plane making an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia.

In the ordinary universe, that is already an absurdly dramatic story.

On the internet, apparently, it wasn’t dramatic enough.

Within 67 minutes of the flydubai flight sending its first distress signal on Sept. 30, before investigators could possibly sort through every detail, social media sleuths reached the conclusion that the whole thing was a giant Israeli production.

Mossad! Netanyahu! “False flag”! “Bibiwood”! Hollywood! A plot so elaborate that, at some point, one might expect the next theory to involve aliens operating the baggage carousel.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that conspiracy theories began spreading almost immediately. The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center documented 1,000 hostile posts within five hours and 2,963 within 12 hours, generating at least 30,000 likes and more than 3 million views.

One social media commenter responding to a CNN report declared: “Brought to you by Bibiwood Productions.”

Another, reacting to interviews with passengers who had fought the rogue co-pilot, complained that nobody should believe the eyewitness accounts.

That was roughly the logic adopted by a collection of influencers and activists from wildly different corners of the political internet.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism said at least 25,000 posts about the incident on X during its first 48 hours included conspiracy narratives. Among the people pushing or entertaining false-flag theories were progressive media personality Ana Kasparian, white supremacist Nick Fuentes and influencer Sneako.

Fuentes declared the incident “false flag terrorism.” Sneako called it a psyop. Commentator Jackson Hinkle wrote that the development was “all too predictable” in a post that was reposted 17,000 times and liked 88,000 times.

Streamer Hasan Piker stopped short of calling it a false flag but questioned the official account and said the timing was “unbelievably beneficial, unbelievably fortuitous” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

British independent MP Ayoub Khan publicly questioned how quickly Israeli officials described the incident, writing that he was “shocked” by the speed of the investigation and adding, “I think I smell a rat!”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned what it called “toxic conspiratorial thinking.” Adrian Cohen, its senior vice president and chair of its International Division, said more than 170 lives had been saved by passengers and crew and argued that the circumstances called for recognition of their courage, not conspiracy theories.

MP Khan doubled down, saying he would not believe a word from Netanyahu unless it was “independently corroborated, double-checked and preferably notarized by the universe itself.”

Notarized by the universe!

At last, an evidentiary standard the internet can get behind.

Conspiracy theories do not need much evidence to get moving.

Amit Cohen, a national security expert quoted by JTA, said there is often a gap between what people want to know and what can be verified immediately after a major event. That gap, she said, is exactly where rumors can flourish.

Gal Yavetz of Bar-Ilan University made the point even more bluntly: When people cannot explain something, some reach for familiar scapegoats — including Jews.

Amit Cohen also noted that AI has made convincing fake material easier to produce while also creating a convenient escape hatch for anyone who wants to dismiss genuine evidence: Just call it AI.

Real video? Fake. Eyewitnesses? Actors. Emergency signals? Staged. A plane plunging thousands of feet? Screenplay.

That is the great trick of conspiracy culture: every piece of evidence becomes evidence for the conspiracy. If there is video, it’s fabricated. If there is no video, that proves the cover-up. If officials respond quickly, they planned it. If they respond slowly, they are hiding something.

It is a theory with one ironclad rule: nothing can ever disprove it.

Meanwhile, the actual passengers and reserve crew did something far less glamorous.

They fought for control of a plane. They helped save more than 170 people. And they landed safely.

That in itself is an extraordinary story. No secret director, no Hollywood backlot and no shadowy screenplay department required.

The only truly unbelievable part may be how quickly some people looked at a real emergency and decided they needed to add a conspiracy plot twist.