War in Gaza
“Silence is complicity”: Greta Thunberg again accuses Israel of genocide
Climate activist Greta Thunberg (archive photo) is not verbally attacking Israel for the first time
© Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
A military operation has been underway in the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked Israel at the beginning of October. Climate activist Greta Thunberg doesn’t think this is justified – and finds clear words.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg and other members of the Swedish branch of the climate protection group Fridays for Future have accused Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip. The fact that the Islamist Hamas, which rules in Gaza, murdered Israeli civilians in “a terrible attack” cannot legitimize Israel’s “ongoing war crimes,” wrote Thunberg and five other signatories in an opinion piece published in the newspapers on Tuesday.Aftonbladet” (Sweden) and “Guardian” (Great Britain) has been published. “Committing genocide is neither self-defense nor proportionate in any way,” they wrote.
On X, formerly Twitter, Thunberg shared her op-ed with the words: “(…) Calling for an end to this inexcusable violence is a matter of basic humanity. Silence is complicity. We cannot remain silent as genocide unfolds.”
Thunberg and her co-authors emphasized that they were only speaking for Fridays for Future in Sweden. The organization has always spoken out when people have to suffer or are being killed, whether in Kurdistan or Ukraine, and will not remain silent now either. They cited the Israeli historian Ras Segal, who described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “textbook genocide” just a few days after the start of the conflict.
Greta Thunberg and FFF Sweden condemn anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents
At the same time, the group condemned anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents in Sweden. “Everyone engaging in this debate has a responsibility to distinguish between Hamas, Muslims and Palestinians, just as the Israeli state should be distinguished from the Jewish people and Israelis,” they wrote.
Greta Thunberg
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Thunberg had already drawn criticism in October because, according to media reports, she shared on Instagram a call from a Germany-based pro-Palestinian group accusing Israel of genocide. Fridays for Future made the accusation of genocide its own in a separate post. The German section distanced itself. At the time, Thunberg only declared after heavy criticism that she rejected Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, in which around 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 240 were kidnapped.