Tel Aviv, Oct 10 (IANS) Despite Pakistan’s pledge to defend Saudi Arabia “by whatever means” and Turkey’s commitment to treat an armed attack on the Kingdom as an attack on itself, neither ally has publicly condemned the violent attack on a civilian aircraft that plunged from the sky and landed in Saudi Arabia with terrified passengers and an injured captain, a report has highlighted.
“There are moments when silence is diplomacy. There are others when silence becomes a political statement. Flydubai Flight FZ1073 should have produced one of the easiest statements any government is ever required to make. An aircraft carrying more than 170 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv was thrown into a terrifying emergency after the co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain in the cockpit,” Italian political advisor, author and geopolitical expert, Sergio Restelli, wrote in ‘The Times of Israel’.
“According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the aircraft plunged almost 14,000 feet in less than thirty seconds before passengers and crew intervened. It eventually landed safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia,” he added.
According to Restelli, the failure to condemn the incident is especially conspicuous because the Mecca pact involving Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia was meant to represent more than yet another regional communique.
“Apparently collective security is easy to articulate when the aggressor is politically convenient. FZ1073 presents a much more uncomfortable test. The aircraft belonged to an Emirati airline. Its destination was Israel. Many of its passengers were Israeli. The captain who fought to save his aircraft was Indian. The alleged attacker was Omani. And the aircraft ultimately sought refuge in Saudi Arabia,” he noted
The expert said that condemning an attempt to destroy a civilian aircraft should not be interpreted as recognising Israel, backing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or abandoning support for Palestine, but simply as a rejection of terrorism.
Restelli stressed the real test of an alliance comes not when its members agree on who the enemy is, but when standing by principle becomes inconvenient.
Stressing that Saudi Arabia should keep a more fundamental point in mind, he said the Kingdom is not merely another state seeking security guarantees.
“It is custodian of Islam’s two holiest mosques and increasingly presents itself as the political centre of a modernising Muslim world. An alliance bearing the name of Mecca therefore carries a moral significance beyond ordinary defence cooperation,” Restelli detailed.
“If the Mecca pact is to represent a serious new security architecture, its members cannot allow their definition of terrorism to change according to the nationality of the victims, the destination of an aircraft or the diplomatic sensitivities of the moment,” he added.
–IANS
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