Anti-Israeli rioters target a flight from Israel as it arrived in Russia.

 

Rioters flood into the Makhachkala airport in Russia's Republic of Dagestan. Fox News/Reuters.

Anti-Israeli rioters target Jews arriving to Makhachkala airport in Russia's Republic of Dagestan. Fox News. Muslims had heard that there was a flight arriving from Tel Aviv in Israel and flooded the airport, to the point where air operations were ceased. A small number of Jews and Israelis were "isolated" during the incident but nobody was hurt. Russia and Vladimir Putin are mostly pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli but have had issues with their Muslim populations in Southern Russia

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My Comment:

This seemed less like a riot and more like a lynch mob that just couldn't find anyone to lynch. These men seemed very angry with Jewish people and given how unruly they were it's very possible had they found any Jews they could have hurt them. The way they hassled this man, who is an Uzbek, shows me that things could have been much worse. 

BREAKING:

The lynch mob which stormed the airport in Dagestan, Russia to search for Jews as a plane was landing from Tel Aviv has found its first “suspected Jew”

He tells them he is Uzbek, but they don’t believe him

“Take his passport, search his phone” pic.twitter.com/9gKteyKFz0

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 29, 2023

It does look like Russian authorities were able to protect the Jews and Israelis on this flight. They should be praised for doing so because this was a dangerous and unruly crowd. They shut down the airport and broke up the crowds and they were able to prevent anyone from getting hurt. 

What would have happened if they hadn't done so? Nothing good. Worst case scenario is that the Jews on the flight would have been lynched. It's also possibly they could have been just beaten or otherwise assaulted. But they also could have been taken hostage by this crowd. I am guessing though that these people would have been torn apart by this crowd. 

You don't often think of radical Islam when you think of Russia but they have had a long history of radicals. Indeed, the Chechen wars of the 1990s were all about radical Islam. I had though those wars had brought things under control as it killed a lot of the worst actors in Russia, but clearly things are not so good. 

I do have questions why a flight would be going from Israel to Dagestan in the first place under these circumstances. With the Israel-Hamas war tensions are high between Jews and Muslims so why send a flight full of Jews there in the first place? It just seems like they are asking for trouble. 

I also wonder how they found out about this flight anyways. I guess these flights are public information so it would be easy enough to look up, but how did it spread after that? I am guessing it was via social media and once a critical mass of people found out about it, things spiraled out of control very quickly. 

I think it's just a matter of time where another of these incidents happen and end up with people getting killed. The media is hyping up every civilian casualty in Gaza and downplaying what Hamas has done. Social media is also allowing anti-Israel protesters to gather worldwide and sooner or later someone is going to be caught by these people and probably will be killed.  

Putin has a difficult path to follow here. He's got large numbers of both Jews and Muslims and is generally pro-Israel. He has seemed to have wanted to try and work as a peacemaker between both sides but he has to make sure not to anger his rather huge Muslim minority. They absolutely hate Israel and Jews in general and if he cracks down too hard on them he could end up in trouble. But if does nothing the next time this happen it might end up with innocent people being killed. It's a problem that all world leaders are going to face the longer this war goes on.