Islamists infiltrate the airspace
Have you heard about the Islamist pilot who, despite his record of posting virulent anti-Israel messages on social media, was nevertheless cleared to fly for a major airline?
No, no, not that one. Not Hamam al-Hammami, the 29-year-old Omani national and co-pilot for flydubai, who planned to crash his plane into Ben-Gurion Airport on September 30 and was thwarted in his design by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Who allowed a grievously injured pilot to open the cockpit door, inspired passengers to rush in, ensured that other pilots were among those passengers and helped them land the plane safely despite damage to its rudder.
I’m talking instead about Captain Ibrahim R. Mossallam. On October 7, 2023, as Hamas did what it most enjoys, savage spilling of innocent blood, Mr. Mossallam cheered the pogrom as the work of “a brave people,” called the massacre legitimate “resistance” and blamed it on the “Zionist regime.”
United placed him on leave (with pay) after the posting was revealed by the group StopAntisemitism. A bit later, Israeli Channel 14 correspondent Libby Alon discovered and publicized the fact that Mr. Mossallam had been quietly returned to the cockpit, despite his having continued, during his paid suspension, to post anti-Israel sentiments.
Pressure was properly put on United by Jewish groups and other sane observers to keep Mr. Mossallam from controlling planes, resulting last week in the perilous pilot being re-suspended while airline officials conduct a “review” of his behavior. If they have trouble evaluating the evidence, they might consider bringing in the Keystone Kops.
They might also consider following the lead of Air Canada, which fired first officer Mostafa Ezzo after he posted photos with signs reading “Israel, Hitler is proud of you.”
Had Mr. Mossallam been a mere passenger, he should have earned a place on the “no-fly” list. Instead, at least until his employer was rightly embarrassed, he was quite literally flying, at the controls of United jets.
Websites dedicated to air transportation news had reported that, before the new suspension, fellow United pilots who were “deadheading”—flying as passengers to destinations from which they were due to fly other planes—chose to abandon their assigned first-class seats and cram into the cockpit of planes being piloted by Mr. Mossallam, nervous as they were about his being at the controls.
Joining the club of nervous-making Islamist pilots—it’s now (at least) a mezuman—is Osama Mansour of EgyptAir. He recently posted a social media video of an El Al plane on the ground in Italy as an EgyptAir flight is shown entering the frame. His accompanying comment: “A surprise entry disrupts the course of events.”
There is audio, too, during the video; it’s a snippet from a speech by former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, in which—during the Yom Kippur war, before he became a proponent of peace with Israel (and was assassinated for that)—he says, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and violence for violence.”
Many of us remember the in-the-air terrorism of the 1970s, when, for instance, TWA Flight 741 was seized by a Palestinian terrorist group and diverted to Jordan, in 1970. Rav Yitzchak Hutner, zt”l, members of his family and some talmidim were on board. The Rosh Yeshivah famously led hostage passengers in tefillah.
Then there was the 1976 Palestinian terrorist diversion of Air France Flight 139, which was forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed by the country’s president, human monster Idi Amin; those hostages were famously liberated by an Israeli commando raid.
Between 1968 and 1986, there were 27 hijackings and attacks on planes by… you guessed it, Palestinian “militants.”
What’s old, it seems, is new again, with people like Messrs. al-Hammami, Ezzo, Mossallam and Mansour reminding us of Islamist disregard for human beings’ lives.
What were flydubai, United and EgyptAir thinking when they hired such haters in the first place?
Whatever the answer to that question may be—and it’s likely “they weren’t thinking”—it’s time for potential pilots’ social media and reputations to be carefully examined before they are allowed in a cockpit.
And if any disturbing things come up in a pilot’s past, he should be kept—permanently—on terra firma ●
