“Naive”, “indecent”, “stupidly stupid”, “anti-Semitic”: There has been sharp criticism, from different angles, for her appearance at a climate demonstration in Amsterdam, where Greta Thunberg once again clearly took the side of the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict Page.
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schustercriticizes the climate activist as at least naive and perhaps even anti-Semitic. On World TV On Monday he called on the German “Fridays for Future” movement to distance itself more clearly from anti-Israel attitudes. Schuster said literally about Thunberg’s most recent pro-Palestinian statements: “I think there is no doubt that she is very, very naive. Assuming anti-Semitism is always a serious accusation. But what I am experiencing here – I am there very close to this accusation.”
He further criticizes Thunberg for using the climate movement and its celebrities to protest against Israel. Thunberg was obviously looking for a new topic that she wanted to associate with climate activists. “This mishmash that has now suddenly emerged here,” said Schuster, “is absolutely condemnable.” It is precisely because many followers are so young and can be easily influenced that “it is so dangerous,” warns Schuster.
The Dutch climate activist Erjan Dam, who opposed Thunberg at the rally in Amsterdam, warns of a split in the climate protection movement. “When Greta Thunberg or other leading activists constantly talk about the Palestine issue, it creates division,” Dam told dem Mirror in an interview published on Monday evening. Dam demands: “The climate protection movement should concentrate on its core issue: climate protection.” In any case, he was disappointed: “I felt abused – and so did many other participants.”
Dam jumped on stage in front of cameras on Sunday and shouted into the microphone: “I came here for a climate demonstration, not to hear political views.”
The Green Party leader Ricarda Lang calls Thunberg’s comments “not only depressing, but absolutely indecent.” At this point, Thunberg is abusing the absolutely necessary and correct concern of climate protection for a one-sided position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, said the politician on Monday in Berlin. Lang accused Thunberg of not naming the perpetrators and not condemning Hamas’ atrocities. One could almost say that she “ultimately swaps perpetrator and victim” and that Thunberg “brushes aside Israel’s right to exist.”
Lang said she was happy that “Fridays for Future Germany” had taken a clear position and stood alongside Jews. The fact that the international movement is currently discrediting itself in this way can “actually only make anyone who cares about climate protection sad.”
Also the President of the German-Israeli Society, Volker Beck, who sat for the Greens in the Bundestag, called it “crazy stupid to say there is no climate justice in the occupied country” in an interview with WDR. The effects of climate change are particularly drastic in Gaza and the West Bank, and at the same time Israel is a country “that is trying to advance climate adaptation through innovations.” He calls Thunberg’s one-sided partisanship in the Middle East conflict “under-complex in a perfidious way.”
Judge even more harshly CSU General Secretary Martin Huber. “Greta Thunberg is an anti-Semite. She supports Hamas fans and stirs up hatred of Israel,” he writes on the X platform. “Fridays for Future” is no longer a climate movement, “it is a propaganda machine riddled with hatred of Jews.”
What happened in Amsterdam on Sunday?
On Sunday, Greta Thunberg speaks about the Gaza war at a climate demonstration in Amsterdam. With a black and white Palestinian scarf around her neck, she took the side of the Palestinians. The climate protection movement has a duty to “listen to the voices of those who are oppressed and who are fighting for peace and justice.” After her speech, she hands the microphone to a young woman who talks about “genocide in her country.” Thunberg says several times: “No climate justice on occupied land” – no climate justice on occupied land. A total of 85,000 people came to the climate demonstration, which was also streamed live.
The woman on stage with Thunberg is activist Sara Rachdan, a Palestinian doctoral student living in Amsterdam. “I just want to explain the situation of the Palestinians,” she says in English in one of the first videos she uploads to her Instagram channel after the Hamas terror attack on October 7. “Finally,” she says, the Palestinian people would defend themselves against the occupation. She does not mention the Hamas terrorist attack.
The activist draws attention to Holocaust comparisons
Rachdan’s radicalism becomes clear when you click through her Instagram account. In her bio, i.e. her social media profile, there is the slogan “From the River to the Sea,” which was recently banned in Germany. A picture shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next to Adolf Hitler, comparing the attacks on Gaza to the Holocaust. It says: “Slaughter ongoing”, the slaughter continues.
It’s just one of many questionable posts. Rachdan attracts attention with its trivialization of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, as well as its terror sympathies and propagandistic speeches. She recently posted a photo of Leila Khaled, a member of the terrorist organization PFLP, who hijacked a plane in 1969 at the age of 25. Rachdan would find this woman inspiring.
It is unclear whether Thunberg knows Rachdan’s positions, but also whether she shares them. Nevertheless, it is not the first time that Thunberg has attracted attention with his clear positioning against Israel and for Palestine. On October 20th, the climate activist published a picture on her private X account showing herself and other activists with posters calling for the “liberation of Palestine.” The sign Thunberg holds in his hands reads: “Stand with Gaza.” She did not address the victims of the October 7 Hamas attack. A few days later, a statement was published on the international Instagram channel of “Fridays for Future”. The “big powers” such as the USA, Germany and Great Britain would cheer a genocide against the Palestinians. In addition, the media would provide false information. The “liberation of Palestine” was also equated with climate justice in this tweet.
Fridays for Future Germany has already had to distance itself once
After heavy criticism of Thunberg’s positioning and allegations of anti-Semitism, the Swedish branch of “Fridays for Future” published a statement on X in which the movement clearly sided with the Palestinians, but also condemned Hamas’ war crimes for the first time. The movement called for an immediate ceasefire.
Luisa Neubauer, the face of the German “Fridays for Future” movement, had previously spoken in an interview with Time online showed disappointment in Thunberg and distanced himself from her statements. The international and German groups are divided.