TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is continuing to exploit the alleged FlyDubai hijacking attempt as a political lifeline, with new aviation restrictions imposed this week serving as the latest instrument in a broader strategy to cling to power through perpetual crisis.
The restrictions, announced by Israel’s so-called transportation ministry following the September 30 incident, bar pilots and cabin crew holding citizenship in countries without diplomatic relations with Israel from operating flights into Israeli occupied airspace. 
The measure affects 31 nationalities, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Oman, and even extends to dual nationals holding French citizenship. United Airlines and Air France have reportedly agreed to enforce the directive.
The official narrative holds that an Omani copilot, Hammam al-Hammami, attempted to crash FlyDubai flight FZ1073 into Tel Aviv, attacking the captain with an emergency axe before being subdued by passengers. The eerie account includes a 20,000-foot plunge and a plumber named Yaniv Hayun who claims he stabilized the aircraft after watching an aviation crash television show.
Yet the story is riddled with inconsistencies that point to fabrication. The alleged descent rate would have caused catastrophic structural failure, as a pilot interviewed by CNN noted. Passengers were photographed standing in the aisles during the supposed nosedive. The alleged hero has no aviation background. Multiple details collapse under basic scrutiny.
An unnamed source close to the UAE government told Yedioth Ahronoth that the Israeli cabinet is “exploiting the FlyDubai incident for political purposes” and delaying the return of FlyDubai flights to serve electoral interests. The source stated bluntly: “The elections, not logic, are managing this event.”
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid confirmed that no mention of any aviation incident was made during a security briefing Netanyahu gave the night before. Lapid accused the prime minister of “cheap political tricks at the expense of Israeli security.”
The complicity of the UAE in this manufactured spectacle cannot be overlooked. Emirati officials initiated their own investigation while the state news agency dutifully reported the Israeli narrative. 
The UAE, which normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords, has served as a convenient staging ground for a scenario designed to manufacture fear ahead of Israeli elections.
Netanyahu has long sought to maintain power at any cost, and the FlyDubai fabrication fits a familiar pattern: manufacture a threat, present oneself as the only leader capable of confronting it, and use the resulting fear to justify endless war and emergency rule.