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?

Er, you commented that you wanted to see "to see definitive evidence that all of the members of Hamas are misogynistic and blocking aid to their own people" and I commented that I'd like to "to see evidence that ANY of the members of Hamas ARENT misogynistic and blocking aid to their own people" and then you pivoted to media restrictions.

Simple question, do you think Hamas are the good guys here?

This is the problem. We don’t know anything for sure from afar anymore.
I do my best to expose myself to accounts & reporting from all angles.. but I don’t take any of it as gospel. Propaganda, bias, and alternative agendas are rife.
I’m not just referring to this war.

No, you made the claim, so you need to back it up, provide evidence.

Absolutely. One of very few well-informed posts on this thread.

I think what was implied is that there is a prevalence of “I support the current thing” at the moment - and despite there being many people who feel true and real empathy for the atrocities, there is a lot of selective activism
and virtue signalling happening too, thanks mostly to Social Media.

This is absolutely what was meant 👍

Hamas not only use their own people are human shields, they intercept aid so that they can use it themselves, leaving civilians to starve.

How do you know what is true and what is virtue signalling as you put it?

A young Yazidi woman who had been kept as a sex slave since childhood was rescued from Gaza. I'm confident that whoever was keeping her - Hamas, PIJ, one of the many other jihadist groups - was a misogynist.

I've also seen Gazans interviewed on the BBC (surprised this got past them) saying that Hamas steals the aid. One interviewee was talking about Hamas stealing the aid long before this war but then said it was too dangerous to continue talking about that. He mentioned Hamas skimming off the money after stolen aid was sold only through approved vendors at inflated prices but then said he shouldn't say any more.

You've got to wonder what the UN gets out of this aid situation. Somebody, somewhere is making money. The UN is an almost totally captured and corrupted organisation. Captured by autocracies and corrupted by bribes. Neither would it be the first time that the UN on the ground was involved in seriously shady and criminal acts.

I agree that this didn't start on October 7th, but it didn't start in 1948 either. The Jewish people have been persecuted and expelled from their own homeland for centuries.

People saying Thunberg et al have succeeded in getting people talking about the situation - most of the globe is already talking about the fucking situation.

Similar boat-based Gaza protests by virtuous Westerners have happened before - the participants merrily sailing into stupid situations counting on Israel to pick them up and return them. They carefully don't sail into some real conflict danger where pirates will jump you and sell your skin and no-one's coming to help.

If climate activists want to be a real persuasive force they need to get off the Omnicause bandwagon. The more they collect fashionable political pokemon, the more they weaken their central message about the environment, which should be aimed at every part of the political spectrum.

Because the more Palestinians who die the more they can blame Israel. Hamas don't care about their citizens. This has been their modus operandi from day 1. Life means nothing to them but they know they can use this for their PR. It's not as if any Western media actually check if it's true or not.

@mumandmumber what total rubbish. Please don't imply that activism on Gaza is somehow antisemitic. The person I know who dedicates the most time to this cause is Jewish themselves, and a beautiful human being they are too.
Also Greta does campaign on other issues, in fact she's famous for it!

I completely agree that supporting the people of Gaza—or calling for justice anywhere—is not inherently antisemitic. That was never my point. I deeply respect that many people, including Jewish & Israeli individuals, are at the forefront of this cause with compassion and integrity.
What I was pointing out is something more nuanced: when an individual consistently highlights suffering in one place (like Gaza), but shows little to no concern for equally devastating crises elsewhere—such as in Sudan, Congo, or Syria—it can raise questions about selective empathy. That can suggest an underlying bias, whether conscious or not.
And yes, Greta absolutely does campaign on multiple issues. Lets see if she launches similar campaigns to highlight other humanitarian crises.

The Israelis had it right when they called it the Selfie Ship.

In recent years, the world has made important progress in listening to and validating the experiences of marginalized communities, becoming more mindful not to question their truth or minimize their suffering.
my observation, and lived experience is that Jewish people don't always receive that same grace.
When they speak out about antisemitism or mistreatment, especially in politically charged contexts, their concerns are sometimes met with skepticism or framed as attempts to silence criticism.

She has campaigned on other issues. Ukraine / Russia as well as Syria. Just FYI

I said "The media aren't allowed in - so how would either side produce evidence about food aid and where it's going."

What is it called in a discussion when someone completely quotes something that hasn't been said?

EDIT - I can see your mistake. Can you?

did you know that the ship was named after the first and only fisherwoman in Gaza?

she’s only 31. This wasn’t misogyny from the past, this is now. How can you possibly claim hamas aren’t misogynistic?

I think that in the West there's been great sensitivity about the Jewish experience (and rightly so) but that has also caused people to be slow to call out Israel for their brutality @mumandmumber
I'm sorry but the main reason there is so much focus on this issue is because of the horror of what has been done, especially to children.
I know that is hard to truly accept but it is the truth.

Yes this!

I want to be clear: I absolutely agree that outrage over the suffering of Gazans—especially children—is valid and necessary. No one should be indifferent to that pain.
But my point has always been about the selective nature of outrage, and what that reveals. Within 24 hours of October 7th—before the scale of Israel’s military response was even fully known—social media was already flooded with anti-Israel rhetoric, accusations, and reshared posts. There was almost no pause to sit with the horror of what had just happened to Israeli civilians, including children. No space for grief. No grace.
That contrast is painful. And when Jewish people try to express how isolating or frightening that felt—how it seemed like empathy for us evaporated instantly—it’s often met with deflection, like in your message. Rather than acknowledging that pain, the focus is quickly turned back to Israel’s actions, as if our trauma is only worth discussing when it doesn't complicate other narratives.
This is exactly the pattern I was trying to describe earlier: Jewish people often aren’t afforded the same compassion or space to speak about our lived experience. Our pain is questioned, reframed, or treated as a political maneuver. That in itself is part of the antisemitism we’re trying to name.
I know that is hard to accept.

@Livelovebehappy commented that "it’s all performative and virtue signalling by Greta [...] Totally ignoring the fact that Hamas are terrorists who are misogynistic and don’t recognize women as having any relevance other than to bear children."

@Jojo2408 wanted to see a reputable source and said they'd "like to see definitive evidence that all of the members of Hamas are misogynistic and blocking aid to their own people." To which I responded I'd like to see evidence that ANY of them AREN'T.

And here we are.

I've also tried to get an answer as to whether @Jojo2408 thinks Hamas are the good guys here. No answer.

Okay?

Thank you.

I'm not Jewish, but my daughter's absent father is and my daughter strongly identifies with her Jewish heritage. My brother and my mother are both strongly 'pro-Palestinian', but even so, I was shocked by my mother commenting on Netanyahu's actions the day after October 7th, before there had been any response from the Israeli government. No time to pause and think of the victims of Hamas's rampage, let's get straight to blaming Israel.

Greta does campaign on other issues but I'm not sure Iran or Qatar want to hear much about just stopping oil. Might not go down well.

I disagree. I think there was outrage and grief over the 7th of October and still is.