After five weeks of the Gaza war, Greta Thunberg once again took the side of the Palestinians at a climate protection demonstration in Amsterdam – and is threatening to divide the global climate movement with her controversial commitment. On Monday, the German activists from Fridays for Future clearly distanced themselves and explained: “Fridays for Future in Germany operates as an independent organization and has long since outgrown Greta as a person.” The processes at the international level have been suspended for some time.
Criticism also came from Green Party leader Ricarda Lang. Thunberg’s comments were not only depressing but also “absolutely indecent.” She has discredited herself as the face of the climate movement through her repeated one-sided statements. “I think that’s clear.” As a teenager in Sweden in 2018, Thunberg got the global movement Fridays for Future rolling with her “school strike for the climate” and was considered a defining figure of the activists for years.
What had happened in Amsterdam?
With a traditional black and white Palestinian scarf around her neck, 20-year-old Thunberg told tens of thousands of listeners in Amsterdam that the climate movement had a duty to “listen to the voices of those who are oppressed and who fight for peace and justice.” Thunberg also chanted several times: “No climate justice on occupied land.” (“There is no climate justice on occupied land.”) She was obviously alluding to the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. After a similar action last month, Thunberg had already been criticized for not specifically mentioning the Israeli victims of the Hamas massacre on October 7, which left around 1,200 dead.
The second excitement was that a Palestine activist took the microphone on Thunberg’s stage and shouted that Israel was committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. However, the next day on Instagram, the woman named Sara Rachdan confirmed the organizers’ statement that she had not been invited as a speaker. She also made it clear that she did not know Thunberg before.
After her presentation, Rachdan was given access to the podium and also to the microphone via another speaker – but the organizers initially put an end to this. But then Thunberg gave her the opportunity to talk about the situation in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli troops have been fighting the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas for over a month.
Largest climate demonstration ever in the Netherlands
According to the police, a good 85,000 people took part in the climate march. This made it the largest climate demonstration ever in the Netherlands. Thunberg was one of the official speakers.
Rachdan is currently completing his doctorate at the medical faculty in Amsterdam. She recently called for protests against Israel in online media. Just two days after the massacre of Israeli citizens by Hamas, she said on Instagram: “It’s not about Hamas, it’s about the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinians are finally taking action against the occupation.” And she also repeatedly compared Israel’s military operations with the Holocaust, the murder of millions of European Jews by German National Socialists.
Green Lang criticizes sharply
Green Party leader Lang said that youth and climate movements do not always have to take a position on every issue. “But there must be clarity about fundamental values. And these fundamental values also include the protection of Jews.” Thunberg accused her of 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.”
CSU General Secretary Martin Huber was even harsher in his judgment. “Greta Thunberg is an anti-Semite. She supports Hamas fans and stirs up hatred of Israel,” he wrote on the X platform. Fridays for Future is no longer a climate movement, “it is a propaganda machine riddled with hatred of Jews.”
Fridays for Future Germany, on the other hand, emphasized that it had repeatedly strongly condemned the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on October 7th. There is no place for anti-Semitism in the movement; We will continue to oppose this resolutely.
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