Thunberg prepares for a confrontation with Israel – in full view of the world
With climate activist Greta Thunberg due to arrive in Gaza with aid supplies – and expecting a clash with Israeli forces – Benjamin Netanyahu faces a dilemma.
On board a 60ft UK-flagged yacht bound for Gaza, Greta Thunberg and her fellow crew members are preparing for the moment – perhaps Sunday, perhaps Monday (local time) – when Israel confronts them in full view of the world.
“I would say it’s fairly calm, but high spirits. We are very happy to be actually going, to be sailing,” Thunberg, 22, told me in a voice message from the boat.
The climate activist is one of 12 crew aboard the Madleen, which left Catania, Sicily, last week. They have set course for Gaza with supplies including baby formula, rice and nappies, and an aim of breaking the naval blockade imposed by Israel on the coastal strip and raising awareness of the plight of Palestinians.
Their mission has presented the Israel Defence Forces, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, with a dilemma. Any attempt to stop the Madleen will be live streamed by Thunberg and the others to a global audience of millions - with all the negative attention that would bring. But the IDF does not appear to be ready to let them land in Gaza.
“We are well aware of the risks of this mission and we have made many risk assessments and by getting on this boat, being on board, we are willingly and knowingly taking those risks, because we believe that the bigger risk here is to be silent in the face of genocide, in the face of injustice and mass starvation of over two million people,” the Swedish activist said. “I am so much more scared of the world’s silence and passivity in [the] face of genocide than anything that could happen to us.”
In the past two years Thunberg has moved from focusing on climate activism to also campaigning for the Palestinian cause. She has joined pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which began after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which Hamas and other armed groups killed about 1200 people and took more than 250 hostages.
Since then, Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed 55,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 125,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel denies committing genocide.
“What brought me on this boat? Just being human, seeing the footage from Gaza, hearing the reports and feeling that I need to do something, whatever that is,” Thunberg said. “And for some reason I have a platform, and if I can use that platform, for example, being on this boat and amplifying the Palestinian cause, then of course I have to do that … I cannot just sit around and watch this genocide happening.”
For Thunberg, supporting action against climate change and supporting the people of Gaza are part of the same fight. “Both the climate crisis, the genocide in Palestine and other humanitarian crises all over the world are results of systems that sacrifice the vast majority of people and … the planet just for a very fortunate few to be able to make profit and to profit out of that exploitation and to be able to keep their geopolitical power at all costs,” she said.
Thunberg’s critics have accused her of promoting anti-Jewish hate speech, which she denies. She said she condemned anti-Semitism as well as other bigotry and discrimination in all forms.
Israel has blocked aid from entering the strip, and the World Health Organisation has warned that civilians there are starving.
With fair winds, the Madleen is due in Gaza on Monday, unless it is stopped by the IDF. Israeli media report that the IDF plans to seize the boat and deport the crew.
In a statement, the IDF said only that it enforced the naval blockade on Gaza and was “prepared for a wide range of scenarios, which it will act upon in accordance with the directives of the political echelon”.
The Sunday Times
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