My Word: Greta and Guterres - 'How dare you!'
It is the rhetorical question that should be asked of Greta Thunberg along with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
I have never been a fan of climate activist Greta Thunberg. When in 2019 the then-16-year-old tearfully lectured the UN Climate Action Summit as if there was literally no tomorrow, I was not among those praising her performance, more emotional than scientific.“How dare you!” wailed Thunberg in the characteristic style of the Swedish teenage celebrity.That “How dare you!” reverberated this week. It was the rhetorical question that should be asked of Greta Thunberg herself along with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Last weekend, Thunberg posted a pro-Hamas thread on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram in which she thundered: “Today we strike in solidarity with Palestine and Gaza. The world needs to speak up and call for an immediate ceasefire, justice and freedom for Palestinians and all civilians affected.”
“Do you think Hamas represents human rights and freedom? Think again!”
A letter co-signed by more than 200 Israelis summed up the intensity of feelings of those still under rocket fire and fearing for their loved ones.“We, the Israeli Forum of Women in the Environment, are deeply hurt, shocked and disappointed with your tweets and posts regarding Gaza, which are appallingly one-sided, ill-informed, [and] superficial...” read the letter, initiated by the forum’s founder, Rony Bruell.“... by expressing them you take sides with terrorists, with the worst and darkest representatives of Humans, and plainly – with the wrong side of history.
“Do you think Hamas represents human rights and freedom? Think again!”The letter specifically mentioned Dr. Shoshan Haran, founder and president of Fair Planet, an NGO that supports smallholder farmers in developing countries – work that should resonate with Thunberg if she truly cares about the environment and human rights. Haran and seven members of her family have been missing since Hamas attacked.Adam Teva V’Din, The Israel Union for Environmental Defense, also took Thunberg to task, noting: “In her influential position, Greta has expressed a one-sided and inconsistent stance, completely ignoring the cruel acts endured by Israeli citizens and the abduction of hundreds of people.“Due to her position, when Greta addresses a different topic superficially and dismissively, it inevitably weakens the validity of her climate-related positions...“Therefore, even without addressing the ethical and moral implications she ignored, Greta is no longer a role model for us in the climate change context...”Similarly, as The Jerusalem Post’s Maayan Hoffman reported this week, the Education Ministry has said it will remove references to Thunberg, declaring her “stance disqualifies her from being an educational and moral role model, and she is no longer eligible to serve as an inspiration and educator for Israeli students.”Ministry figures presented to a special session of the Knesset Education Committee this week show that at least 34 Israeli schoolchildren were murdered, 30 abducted, 15 wounded, and two were still missing midweek.If you want a sobering reminder of where Hamas stands in the educational sphere, look no further than its school textbooks and its summer camps that foster incitement against Israel and Jews and indoctrinate the cult of martyrdom that encourages suicide terrorist attacks. There’s a lesson to be learned – but first, you have to open your eyes and hearts. Greta can stand with Gaza, but she is delusional if she thinks Hamas would return the favor to a young, female environmentalist. Calling for “Climate justice” while ignoring the greatest injustice perpetrated against the Jewish people since the end of the Nazi regime, is grotesque. The social media response to Thunberg’s posts by outraged Israelis across the political spectrum was swift and to the point. A caricature by Itzik Samucha showed a Hamas terrorist dragging a black bag marked “Israeli babies,” leaving a trail of blood, while Thunberg holding a Palestinian flag yelled: “How dare you... use plastic bags?? We need to save the world!”A creative video response showed Thunberg delivering the speech that made her famous, condemning world leaders for not doing enough to combat global warming, interspersed with images from the Hamas assault.Incidentally, for years, Israel and the rest of the world did not pay sufficient attention to Hamas’ environmental terrorism – the launching of incendiary kites and devices that burned fields, forests, and nature reserves, taking a huge toll on local ecosystems. The burning of Israeli land progressed to burning Israeli communities and their residents.The UN Secretary-General ignited a storm in Israel on Tuesday when, while condemning the Hamas attacks – and Israel’s response – he said: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum” adding that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”On Wednesday, he issued a clarification “to set the record straight,” but like Thunberg, he did not backtrack on finding a justification for Hamas’ acts. (And ignored the fact that Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005.)Guterres is either the victim of his own knee-jerk need to seek moral equivalence or, like the organization he heads, he has been hijacked by Palestinian apologists. Guterres himself did not act in a vacuum. He acted in a political climate that dominates the UN. He is fed a certain diet and then spits out the words without thinking.For all that the secretary-general said he, of course, condemns the Hamas atrocity unequivocally, I read the statement delivered to the UN on Tuesday by Tor Wennesland, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. Wennesland also condemned the attacks by Hamas “militants,” but explained: “These devastating events are not divorced from the broader context in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel, and the region, where dynamics are deeply intertwined.“The unresolved conflict and continued occupation shape the reality of every Israeli and every Palestinian...”Blame the victim at its best: Israel.It is not the fate of the planet that keeps me awake at night, but the fate of humanity.liat@jpost.com
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