Greta’s flotilla

[TheSnugMoose]

What are you thoughts on this? 13 people including Greta Thunberg were travelling to Palestine via boat with supplies. It’s been intercepted by Isreal and diverted.

Whatvare your thoughts? I’m guessing they will simply be deported, maybe with a severe telling off? The UN and the Palestinian foreign ministry have vocalised their support and asked for them to be allowed to continue their journey, however Isreal have said it was nothing more than a vanity exercise and they had very limited supplies on board to actually give aid.

What do you think will happen to the activists on board? Do you think they were right to go? Do you think they genuinely wanted to help or it was more about raising awareness?

I like Greta and I love that she has, so far, used her life to champion causes and she seems like a clever and funny woman. But I wonder if this trio was always doomed and what their long term plan was, especially if they had little aid onboard? But if that was their intention, maybe they just wanted to raise awareness of their feelings on the situation? Should anyone be trying to intervene like this or should it be left to proper channels?

I know feelings are high about this and I want to say I don’t support any of the awful things that have happened and recognise bad things on both sides. I don’t care for Israel’s terrible behaviour or Hamas’ awful doings, I do however care for the innocent people in the middle on both sides. This thread is just to get general thoughts on this…’mission’.

Just to add my thoughts: if this was a genuine aid mission then I respect them putting themselves potentially at risk (due to the boat trip) to care for others but also feel like it’s extremely naive and not actually the right thing to do, there has to be better ways to support?

It'll be Emma Thompson next.

This.

Plus there's another thread on this with circa 500 posts.

If she was serious about going there (big if!) the Israelis may well have saved her life and that of all the others on the boat as there is no way they could have avoided coming into contact with Hamas in Gaza. She could have been imprisoned or co-opted into participating in Hamas propaganda. However they may have been counting on the Israelis intervening.

OP you asked why Hamas would block aid to its own people. One of Hamas's war aims is to turn world opinion against Israel, to delegitimise it as a state. It is very hard to get an independent understanding of exactly what's going on with the aid situation but it's entirely in Hamas's interests to 1) feed itself first and 2) maximise civilian suffering.

I have no idea if intercepting them in international waters was illegal or not. The media isn't reporting on that. The media is reporting that the crew were given sandwiches and water by Israel and were "in good spirits". That's what Sky News are saying so that's what people are hearing about Israel right now. I don't report the news, I'm just pointing out how it's been portrayed.

I think she's an odious little brat who will do anything to avoid getting a real job.

Gretta looking delighted with the local Israeli Deliveroo service here - delivering all the way out in international waters and all https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0609/1517413-gaza-aid-ship-madleen/

The media you watch/read may only be reporting that, but its certainly reported elsewhere.

It was sailing under the UK flag. Only a UK warship or a warship authorised by international law can intercept it. Israel is neither.

Now that this jolly little jape is over I don't think it has achieved that much, sadly. I don't know what it will take to end this awful situation.

I did look but I couldn’t see another thread.

ETA - I’ve found that thread but I’m not allowed to post on it as I only reactivated my account yesterday.

Meh, so what. Israel breaks more rules but Gretta Golden Girl gets another 15 minutes.

My point being everyone will get het up about this little media stunt for the next while while the whole blasted, bloody, outrageous war trundles on.

I feel very uneasy about the whole thing, firstly because it all feels a bit performative. I’m all for embarrassing the Israeli government, but this particular group don’t seem well organised or strategic enough to actually do anything useful. Secondly, I’m genuinely concerned for their safety and think they’ve underestimated how dangerous the situation is. I hope I’m wrong, but this feels like it could blow up in their faces. Sad, because there’s no doubting their good intentions.

They had the Brazilian activist Tiago Avila on sky at the weekend who seemed very smiley and peaceable and we want to fight American an Zionist imperialism and aNd ever so good natured (they didn't ask about Russian imperialism, as per). Said Greta was doing the chores alongside the others on the boat like cleaning the loos and cooking. Ah hunh, I thought. Get the girlies doing all the shit work and call it solidarity

He was then asked about why he attended the funeral of he leader of Hezbollah and he said he'd go anywhere he was invited. Reminded me a bit of pre Messiah complex Russell Brand when he'd end every Big Brother with "Hare Krishna"

There’s actually plenty of video footage of Hamas murdering, torturing their own people, you don’t have to look far. They don’t care about their own people, this is something that many people don’t seem to realise. They have been vocal about how pleased they are that so many of their own people have been killed during the war and have stated that they have had that many babies born anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
Gazas port only takes fishing boat sized boats, so they knew they were never going to make it to Gaza from the beginning, it’s all a set up.
I’d say this was the best outcome possible, the aid is being passed to the correct distributor and the passengers will make it home safely.
The fact that these ‘environmentalists’ dropped all of their phones and electrical devices into the ocean is the most shocking part to me.

I have huge respect for her. Someone who is prepared to stand up to the world’s bullies and try and make a difference.

Those saying she is foolish as it won't work underestimate her considerable intelligence. She will have known the risks and likely outcome - it's a courageous attempt to raise awareness of the difficulty of getting aid to Gaza. While she will know her fame will probably protect her, it's not guaranteed, so she has been very brave imo.

Heroic individuals have always attracted opprobrium as they make people uncomfortable. How embarrassing to be one of these narrow minded fools instead of someone who takes action against injustice.

This began in 1948, not October 7th.

Any thoughts on the people who went with her on her adventure?

Even braver as they don't have fame to protect them.

Performative is kind of the point - like sailing across the ocean instead of flying, Thunberg makes a point in the most effective headline-grabbing way possible. It's what activists do.

She is amazing 💪

Perfect example of the Omnicause - a disparate group of unrelated “left wing/progressive” issues which are bundled together for the purposes of demonstrating your moral purity. JSO/Palestine/trans rights are the trifecta here. I actually think this is the perfect example of how the Omnicause manifests. Greta came to public attention protesting against climate change quite a few years ago now and yet she never saw fit to pivot to delivering aid in any other global conflict that’s happened since. But she’s managed to make an exception for Palestine, why? Because of how Palestine has been packaged with other causes as a sort of bloated Omnicause of general protest.

The point is to grab the headlines, which she has done, successfully.

But when the activist becomes the main performance they stop achieving anything more meaningful than noise on SM. People aren’t talking about the Israeli/Hamas war more than they were yesterday - they are talking about Greta the personality.

The noise is the point because it's all a private citizen can do, just as with the environment.

It worked in the sense it got them into the headlines. Israel took any potential gain out of it by treating the situation calmly and sending them home. International waters or not, it looks like they're just going to give them a stern talking to (October video) and send them home. Israel handled this like a bunch of PR pros. The war goes on.