Former Shin Bet employee on the real causes of the Flydubai plane incident. Interview

Former Shin Bet employee Alex Kushnir told Vesti studio that the attempted hijacking of a Flydubai plane was a result of negligence and a security system failure. He drew a parallel with the October 7 disaster, accused officials of lacking accountability, and called for reform of Israel's governance system.

Former Shin Bet employee and former Knesset member Alex Kushnir, in an interview with Vesti studio, stated that the attempted hijacking of a Flydubai plane by a passenger from Oman was a result of systemic negligence. According to him, the head of the security department at the Ministry of Transport is a "freelancer with a bunch of side gigs" paid by foreign airlines, with no motivation to check crew lists. Kushnir emphasized that the threat could have been identified through open-source intelligence (OSINT), but nothing was done. Kushnir drew a direct parallel between the aviation failure and the October 7 disaster, stating that in both cases the system failed due to an "unshakable concept." He noted that in a normal country, officials would resign after such an incident, but in Israel, the culture of accountability after October 7 has "finally died." Kushnir also reported that together with Professor Eugene Kandel and Ron Zur, he founded an institute proposing a reform of Israeli governance, and called on citizens to evaluate politicians by results, not eloquence.