On Monday, several voices were heard in Germany criticizing climate activist Greta Thunberg after she called for a “ceasefire” and wore a black and white keffiyeh at a climate demonstration in Amsterdam the day before.
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The activist called for a “now ceasefire” in the Middle East on Sunday during an environmental march that brought together around 70,000 participants in the Dutch city to demand more attention from authorities on climate change, 10 days before snap elections in the Netherlands .
“As a climate justice movement, we must listen to the voices of the oppressed and those fighting for freedom and justice,” she told the crowd.
She was interrupted by a man who tried to grab the microphone from her and claimed that he had come for an ecological demonstration – organized by a coalition of Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, Oxfam and Greenpeace – and not for “his Politics”. Position.
In Germany, where Israel’s security is considered a “reason of state” due to the country’s historical responsibility in the Shoah, this episode caused a stir and accused the country of taking pro-Palestinian positions in the conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas.
The co-chair of the environmental party The Greens, Ricarda Lang, supported Fridays for Future, but complained that “Greta Thunberg is abusing the cause of climate protection to take a one-sided position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which she does not condemn in absolute terms.” Hamas atrocities.
The episode marks “the end of Greta Thunberg as a climate activist,” said Volker Becker, president of DIG, a German-Israeli friendship group. “Hate of Israel is the main cause,” he said.
The Israeli embassy in Germany said it was “sad that Greta Thunberg is using the climate scene for personal gain.”
In the wake of the Israeli bombings in Gaza, which followed Hamas’s bloody October 7 attacks against Israel, Fridays for Future denounced the “genocide” in Gaza and criticized “Western support and disinformation machines.”
Comments from which the president of the German section of the organization, Luisa Neubauer, distanced herself. She recently said she was “disappointed that Greta Thunberg had nothing concrete to say about the Jewish victims of the October 7 massacre.”
Greta Thunberg has been “extraordinarily thoughtful and empathetic” in the past, but the movement must now examine “with whom we still have a basis for cooperation based on shared values,” she said.
“It is clear that… global realities regarding Israel and Palestine are different. But that does not justify anti-Semitism or disinformation,” she warned.