The United Arab Emirates is reportedly planning to execute the Omani terrorist who tried to hijack and crash a FlyDubai flight to Israel on September 30.

World Israel News was among the Israeli and European outlets that reported on October 4, “The Omani co-pilot accused of attacking the captain of a flydubai flight bound for Israel and attempting to seize control of the aircraft is expected to face the death penalty in the United Arab Emirates, according to a senior Emirati official familiar with the investigation.”

While the Islamic religion explicitly commands jihad against infidels, and particularly against Jews, the UAE is a rare Muslim country that actually has severe penalties for attempted terrorism. And it has diplomatic ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords.

Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani terrorist, is a “free Palestine” activist inspired by Al-Qaeda, which has also praised him and called for copycats since the attempted hijacking. Al-Hammami wanted to crash the airplane into Ben Gurion Airport. This comes right before the anniversary of the October 7 atrocities.

One of the major reasons that a well-functioning society needs the death penalty for very severe crimes like murder, terrorism, and rape is that it also discourages other people from committing those same crimes. Some people might point out that in the case of Muslim terrorism, many of the perpetrators thought they were going to die committing the act anyway. But for Muslims, at least, there is a difference in the heroism between dying while killing infidels and dying ignominiously executed for a crime. Yes, Al-Hammami still thinks Allah will reward him in the afterlife, but other terrorists will probably be less likely to target individuals from countries like the UAE in the future when they can target individuals from countries that don’t have harsh punishments for terrorism. 

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One of the problems that Israel has is that, under Western pressure, it often will release mass-murdering terrorists as part of so-called peace deals in order to obtain back one or a few Israeli captives. The 2025 peace deal mandated the release of 2,000 Gazans (most of them jihadis, and 250 of them convicted mass murderers) in exchange for the last few Israeli hostages. The Palestinian terrorists wouldn’t go to such efforts to recover thousands of fellow terrorists from Israeli custody, and then lavish them with financial rewards, if they didn’t prefer death during Jihad to death in prison. 

Israel is not the only country that could and should execute more terrorists. It has taken over a decade and a major change in leadership for the U.S. government and military to approve execution for the mass murdering Fort Hood jihadi. Several of the 9/11 conspirators remain in U.S. prisons 25 years later. And we are now experiencing multiple Islamic terrorist attacks within our country every year. We need to stop projecting weakness. Hopefully, the execution of the Fort Hood terrorist is the first of many.