It took just 67 minutes for the attempted hijacking of yesterday’s Israel-bound FlyDubai flight to become an accusation against Israel and Jews, according to new research from the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), exposing how quickly a terrifying aviation emergency was exploited to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories.
CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) identified 2,963 posts on X attributing the September 30 incident to Israel, Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionists or Jews during a 12-hour monitoring period. The first recorded accusation appeared just 67 minutes after the aircraft transmitted its initial emergency distress signal.
The report, “‘False Flag’ Claims Within an Hour: Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Flourish After FlyDubai Terror Attack,” documents the rapid escalation of these narratives. Approximately 72% of the 4,136 collected posts containing the phrase “false flag” promoted the identified conspiracy claims. In the final two hourly monitoring windows, that proportion reached 81% and 82%, respectively. These figures describe the monitored dataset, rather than all discussion of the incident on X.
The findings expose a disturbing inversion: people whose lives were endangered became targets of accusations that their own country or community had secretly orchestrated the attack. A moment that should have prompted concern for passengers and crew instead became another vehicle for portraying Jews as hidden manipulators of world events.
“What’s striking here isn’t just the volume, it’s the speed,” said ARC Research Associate Oliver Marks. “67 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. 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.”
The ARC study’s concluding assessment noted, “The pattern mirrors the influence operations that hostile states, Russia foremost among them, use to destabilize Western societies: sowing social division, exploiting breaking news events, and portraying Israel and Jews as the ‘hidden hand’ behind them.”
The implications extend beyond one flight. When attacks involving Israelis are immediately recast as Jewish conspiracies, the resulting narratives erase victims’ suffering, redirect blame and reinforce longstanding antisemitic tropes. The speed documented here underscores the need for journalists, public officials and social media platforms to recognize and challenge these claims before repetition gives them the appearance of credibility.
Read the full report.