Karin Pihl
On Monday, a video was published on Greta Thunberg's social media accounts. “If you see this video, we have been kidnapped by the Israeli occupation force,” she says, holding on to the mast of the sailboat Madleen.
The film ends with Thunberg urging her friends to put pressure on the Swedish government to get her and the rest of the crew free.
It wasn't necessary. Israel bought her a plane ticket. She now has landed in Paris. No intervention from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was needed. No campaigns for her release with the hashtag #FreeGreta.
She herself seems to have come to an insight. It hurts “our cause” to stay in Israel against the will of the Israeli authorities, she said before boarding the plane. However, that is not the only insight that should come to Greta Thunberg and her supporters.
Israel stopped them in international waters. But Thunberg should still ask herself how tasteful it is to claim that she was kidnapped when she is clearly on her way home. Unlike the 251 people kidnapped by Hamas during the 2023 terrorist attack.
At least 21 of them are still being held hostage and are alive. Unlike the kidnapped victims – and the children starving to death in Gaza – Greta and company are treated to sandwiches and mineral water, and later allowed to leave. Ironically, they thus become an involuntary part of a PR effort by the Israeli military.
Another thing to consider is how reasonable it is to join hands with people who have connections to anti-democratic groups and/or sympathize with terrorist movements.
One of the activists on the boat was, according to German media, at the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah is an Iran-backed anti-Semitic terrorist militia that has the destruction of the state of Israel as one of its primary goals.
But Greta Thunberg waves that off."I haven't heard anything," she told SVT Nor does she want to comment on Hamas's role in the conflict.
This is not the first time Thunberg and her movement have failed to hold the line against anti-Semitism.
Remember the slogans that the anti-racist student movement used 10-15 years ago: “read on” and “get an analysis”.
At the beginning of the war, Fridays for Future accused Western media of being controlled by “imperialist states” that brainwash their readers with Israeli propaganda. It is a classic anti-Semitic figure of speech. On a demonstration In Amsterdam, Thunberg passed the microphone to a person who praised Hamas terror. The chant “from the river to the sea,” implying the annihilation of Israel, has been chanted at demonstrations.
Fridays for Future and Thunberg have dutifully distanced themselves from human rights violations and from both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. But despite this, people often appear on Thunberg's side who do not.
Remember the slogans that the anti-racist student movement used 10-15 years ago: “read up” and “get an analysis”. The implication was that those who are subjected to racism should not have to explain the mechanisms of racism. Instead, the uneducated should acquire knowledge.
That motto doesn't seem to apply to the activists who repeatedly fail to keep clean against anti-Semitism and pure terror worship. As I said. Yawn yawn,"nothing I've heard."
The Israeli government currently consists of a bunch of right-wing idiots that no sane person can defend. Gaza is pure hell. But that doesn't mean you can shrug your shoulders at blatant racism and terrorist romanticism.
