Wrong-Way Thunberg

There was, many years ago, Wrong-Way Corrigan. And now there is Wrong-Way Greta Thunberg, who, argues Israeli commentator Herb Keinon, should have steered her boat not from Europe to Gaza, but from Gaza to Europe, bringing to the world a message about the real villain of the piece , Hamas. More on Keinon’s suggestion can be found here: “If Greta really wanted to help, she’d launch a flotilla sailing away from Gaza – comment,” by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, June 9, 2025:

Greta Thunberg is good at drama. That’s part of her power. She stages visual stunts – school strikes, impassioned speeches, long-haul voyages across oceans – and those stunts go viral, giving her message reach far beyond what a traditional press release or op-ed could ever achieve.

So it’s no surprise that she turned to the sea again this week, setting out on a yacht – carrying minimal “humanitarian aid” – bound for Gaza to “raise awareness” about the situation there.

She wanted to “raise awareness” about the most-covered story in the whole wide world, the one about the “suffering” in Gaza for which, Greta Thunberg knows for a fact, the colonial-settler ethnic cleansing genocidal state of Israel is entirely responsible. Weren’t there stories receiving far less coverage that Greta might have tried at this point to bring to the public’s attention, such as the world’s worst famine, that is now taking place in the Sudan, where 25 million people are experiencing “acute food insecurity”? But that story doesn’t involve blaming Jews. So Greta’s not interested.

And it’s no surprise that Israel stopped the boat early Monday morning, calling it a virtue-signaling stunt – one the Foreign Ministry aptly named the “selfie yacht” – that helps no one and ignores some very inconvenient facts.

Because while Gazans are indeed suffering, the root of that suffering is not Israeli policy – it’s Hamas. And if Greta, or anyone else in her camp, really wanted to help the people of Gaza – or even raise meaningful awareness – they’d launch a very different kind of flotilla.

Call it the Hostages Flotilla.

A group of small boats could sail not toward Gaza, but away from it, carrying the photos of the Israeli hostages still being held inside by Hamas. They’d fly banners reading: “Free Gaza – from Hamas,” and “Let the Hostages Go Home.” The boats would carry signs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, reminding the world that Hamas isn’t just at war with Israel – it’s at war with its own people.

Hamas is not only holding the hostages captive but also the enclave’s entire population. This would really be a freedom flotilla – to free the hostages and Gazans from Hamas’ cruel, jihadist rule….

Hamas holds the people of Gaza in thrall. It has a long record of murdering any Gazans who dare to speak out against it. Some it tortures before executing them. It likes to kill its critics in public — a more effective way to terrify its enemies into silence. The other day in Gaza City’s main square, someone who had been caught denouncing Hamas for the misery it had brought to the civilians in Gaza was shot dead.

The “activists” aboard the ship – including Thunberg and French European Parliament Member Rima Hassan, a Franco-Palestinian – were looking for one thing: a provocation. Thunberg had already cast herself in the role of Joan of Arc, releasing a breathless video where she declared: “My name is Greta Thunberg, and I am from Sweden. If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel. I urge all my friends, family, and comrades to put pressure on the Swedish government to release me and the others as soon as possible.”

As if Israel wants to keep Thunberg any longer than absolutely necessary….

What melodrama! What. a drama queen! Thunberg is the heroine of her own life, and wants to be the heroine of your life, too. “If you see this video,” you will know that “I have been kidnapped.” But of course she wasn’t kidnapped; she was briefly detained when taken off the ship at the port of Ashdod, and no one need call for her “release.” For god’s sake, the Israelis couldn’t wait to send the brat on a plane back to Sweden just as soon as they could. That’s not what kidnappers do.

Want more irony? Try this: Hamas saluted those on the boat and demanded their release, calling their detention “a flagrant violation of international law.” Among the credits Thunberg can now put on her CV is this: Hailed by Hamas.

Yes, Hamas is outraged; how dare the Israelis hold anyone hostage? They must be released at once. Hostage-taking is “a flagrant violation of international law.” Clearly, Hamas lacks any sense of irony.

The Thunberg caper received far less attention than she was hoping. We’ve seen this publicity hound too many times before. Just as the saga of her boat ride from Sicily to Gaza was finishing, many other stories were in the news, reducing the coverage of her boat trip to a few paragraphs in most papers, save for a column in Svenska Dagbladet. Those other stories include the feud between President Trump and Elon Musk, the continuing on-again-off-again tale of the tariffs, the Tony Awards, the Ukrainian drone attacks on airbases in distant Siberia, and the ferocious Russian response, and so much else.

Of the twelve members of the boat’s passengers and crew, how many of them, if they had actually watched the 43-minute film showing the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which the Israelis tried to show them, might have bethought themselves, and begun to wonder if they really should be supporting a group capable of such acts, and eager to repeat them? You know the answer to that. None.