Alarm plane turns heads

Writer: Dr. Hazem Qashou

In conjunction with Netanyahu's meetings in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, which included representatives of ten countries, in addition to the Emirates and Israel, representatives of America, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Libya and Oman, which is an important factor in clarifying the situation, and also with the completion of the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, including Erbil, which is another factor aimed at repositioning, the plane incident comes to capture the viewer's attention, and opens a series of narratives whose titles vary between talking about a kidnapping, and what... It took place inside the cockpit, leading to the intervention of passengers and crew members and control of the situation, and the emergency landing of the plane in Saudi territory, which implicitly received Israeli passengers for justified humanitarian cases, even though the plane was closer to Jordanian airspace.

But what draws attention is not the incident alone, but rather the political and military scenes that accompanied it, the timing of its occurrence, and the nature of the air route it was taking. The air line between the Emirates and Israel is no longer just a transit line, but has become one of the dense daily traffic routes, while Flydubai alone operates flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, with ten flights per day, and this route has been linked to a wide movement of Israeli passengers, the number of which has reached about 5,000 passengers per day.

This raises another question about the message carried by this incident, the meaning of which may be beyond the borders of the plane itself: Are we facing an indirect reference to the necessity of reducing the movement of Israeli passengers through this route, before entering into a new military phase that may start from Iran, the consequences of which will not remain confined within its borders or the borders of Israel, at a time when Netanyahu was conducting political and security discussions in Abu Dhabi during a visit that lasted about six hours?!

But this question does not necessarily mean that the plane accident was planned for this purpose, nor that there is an announced decision to reduce air traffic between Tel Aviv and the Emirates. The official data available so far does not prove this, and the investigation into the incident is still ongoing. However, Flydubai later announced the temporary suspension of its flights to and from Israel until the investigation is completed, and this may be an implicit answer to that, especially since policy is not always read from data alone, but rather from the coincidence of events and their paths... When a security incident occurs on a heavily trafficked air route, at a time when the region is witnessing rapid political and military movements, the question becomes legitimate about whether the movement of civilians and commercial aviation has also begun to enter into the calculations of the next stage.

What is more dangerous than that is that any large-scale confrontation with Iran will not necessarily remain a bilateral confrontation, as regional geography makes the Gulf, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean an area of conflict, in addition to the possibilities of closing or changing flight and navigation routes, as they are arenas that are affected to different degrees by any potential major escalation that is expected to occur during the holding of the Israeli elections, in which Netanyahu is still acting as prime minister, despite Eisenkot’s partisan lead, but Netanyahu’s bloc is still closer. For his accession to the presidency of the government again, in light of President Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s program of demolition and reconstruction... This is an incident that Netanyahu is exploiting electorally in order to unify his coalition in deterrence, and unify his electoral base to defend Israel’s security.

The “airplane message” may seem closer to a question than an answer, since it serves as a declaration of war, as its leaders revealed, and shows the gateway to normalization and the entrances to other alignments: Has the region begun to sense a new phase, in which civil movement is being eased and preparations are being made for broader military possibilities? Or was what happened just an exceptional security incident that came at a very sensitive time?... Only the investigation can determine the truth of what happened inside the cockpit, but the significance of the timing, the plane’s path, and the circumstances surrounding it remain open to a broader political reading. In light of these data, changing the direction of a plane in the air may not always be the issue of the alternative destination alone, but rather of crystallizing a penetrating question that says: Where is the region heading?... Was this a warning plane aimed at diverting attention... but about what?... This is what will be revealed in the coming days.