Victory at 34,000 feet

Sometimes a geopolitical transformation is easier to see than to explain. Wednesday, it was visible at 34,000 feet. A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was attacked from inside the cockpit. The captain was stabbed by his co-pilot, and as the aircraft plunged thousands of feet, the pilot succeeded in unlocking the armored cockpit door, enabling passengers and crew to intervene. The copilot, an Omani, was subdued, and the plane eventually landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Both the captain and copilot have been hospitalized.


That's the news as we've seen it. But look at what happened around it.

The airline was Emirati. The passengers were largely Israeli. The aircraft was flying from the UAE to Israel. And when trouble struck, it landed safely in Saudi Arabia.


Five years ago, that sequence would have been extraordinary. Today, it happened.

That's the Abraham Accords at work.


Not because Saudi Arabia signed them. It hasn't. Not because the Accords somehow caused the rescue. They didn't. Because Donald Trump's 2020 agreement between Israel and the UAE helped change the relationships that define the region. Once the UAE opened its door to Israel, commercial flights followed. People followed. Business followed.

And the effects didn't stop at the signature line. Saudi Arabia remains outside the Accords. Yet on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia became part of a chain of cooperation involving an Emirati airline and Israeli passengers.

Then came the image. Passengers on the aircraft were filmed clapping and singing in Hebrew as they landed in Saudi Arabia. One report identified the song as Od Avinu Chai, “Our Father still lives.”

Hebrew. In Saudi Arabia. From Israelis who had just survived an apparent attempt to bring down their airplane.

You don't need a diplomatic summit to understand what that means. The Abraham Accords didn't make the Middle East peaceful. They changed what was possible. And once something becomes possible, other people start making use of it.

That's how history changes -- sometimes with a treaty, sometimes with an airline route.

And sometimes at 34,000 feet.

Luis Gonzalez is the owner and publisher of The Last Wire, an independent blog covering news, politics, opinion, and the rabbit holes beneath the headlines. His work has also appeared in the American Thinker. He has been writing online since 2000 and is the founder of Boiling Frogs, a personal blog launched in 2008. A retired food service professional, Gonzalez spent more than 40 years on both the operator and supply sides of the industry. He hangs his hat at The Briefing Room, where he excels at the role of resident curmudgeon.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/victory-at-34-000-feet/