A camouflaged MiG-23 interceptor of the Syrian air force took off from a base near Damascus last week, flew on a training mission to the Golan Heights, then dropped to 164 ft. and zoomed straight into Israel. It landed on a civilian airstrip at Megiddo, 57 miles north of Jerusalem, where its pilot, Major Mohammed Bassem Adel, 34, asked for political asylum. At a press conference last week, he said he had defected because "I would like to live in a democratic state."
Not since 1966, when an Iraqi landed in central Israel, had an Arab pilot defected to Israel. Embarrassed...
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