In an interview, climate activist Luisa Neubauer expressed her horror at the coldness towards Jewish suffering at “Fridays for Future”. Dem Time Magazine Online she says in the am Conversation published on Monday evening: “The fact that Greta Thunberg has not yet said anything concrete about the Jewish victims of the massacre on October 7th disappoints me.” And: “If someone writes about the media manipulating people so that they are on the side of Israel,” as happened in Instagram posts from the international group “Fridays for Future” last week, then, says Neubauer, ” “I don’t need an expert to see the anti-Semitic narratives in it.”
Greta Thunberg made a “Stand with Gaza” statement on social media on October 20th, and shortly afterwards the climate activists from “Fridays for Future” made an international statement Instagram channel according to the movement. They explained in several quote tiles how the “brainwashing” of the “Western media” causes people to stand on Israel’s side. Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called for the German branch of the climate movement to be decoupled.
Your stance against anti-Semitism is clear, says Luisa Neubauer. It is “obvious that global realities diverge among many organizations when it comes to Israel and Palestine.” But that does not justify anti-Semitism or disinformation. “And the fact that it actually exists surprised me. I didn’t see that coming.”
“We originally decided not to worry about this issue.”
In the interview, Neubauer is asked that there has already been a disagreement about the Middle East conflict in the climate movement in the past. Also the name of the activist Hasan Ö. from Rhineland-Palatinate, which, like that Jewish General reported in August based on chat logs that there was probably intense hostility to Israel in the international group. Neubauer explains: “We originally decided not to stress about this issue in order to be able to work together,” and that worked for many years. “A year and a half ago there was the first post in which we distanced ourselves as a German group.” Afterwards, “Fridays for Future” held anti-Semitism workshops in Germany, briefed press spokespeople and social media representatives “and included in our German working principles that we are actively committed to combating anti-Semitism.”
To explain how the German and international groups can now be so divided, Luisa Neubauer says: “It’s probably not clear to many people what the international movement of Fridays for Future actually is. It’s not a formal structure, but a loose network on Telegram -Groups that everyone can get into.” It is “almost impossible to make structured and representative decisions” in this network. And now it’s like this: “The number of countries in which Fridays for Future really mobilizes masses is very manageable. These include Germany, Austria and Switzerland.” In recent days, the three countries have published statements condemning Hamas’ terror. Among those exchanging ideas in chats at the international level “are also people who were excluded from the German movement: because of hatred, hate speech, anti-Semitism,” says Neubauer.
“I think we’re seeing that even intersectionality can have its limits.”
“In addition, Palestinians are read as indigenous in large parts of the international discourse,” says Neubauer. “And when we talk about climate justice, indigenous people are at the center of many struggles, they are among those who experience enormous injustices, even though they are also the ones who protect vast swaths of ecosystems and biodiversity.” But you end up with “terrible assumptions” if you open up a “hierarchy of suffering” in search of the greatest suffering and hardly allow any contradictions. “I think we’re seeing that even intersectionality can have its limits.”
She also underestimated how unstable the transnational agreements of “Fridays for Future” were. “For example, that we oppose all discrimination and that this includes anti-Semitism. Realizing that this is not the case is hard.”
There is not enough anti-Semitism education in schools and in public, says Neubauer. It was only after visiting a concentration camp with her grandmother that she understood that the crimes of the Nazi era also affected her. She sees “blatant ignorance among many people. In my eyes, politics and the media are primarily responsible.” Neubauer says: “I think it’s naive to assume that we can shape the future for the better if we don’t also embrace the past.”
When asked about the consequences, Luisa Neubauer says that processes that take place internationally have been paused. But it is not easy to formally separate. “We’ll start from the beginning and check whether there is currently a shared foundation of values that we can still work with.” Changing the name wouldn’t solve the real problem. And: “If we were to now only focus on Germany, that would contradict the fact that the climate crisis is global.” You have to find out how a form of global movement can work.