Greta Thunberg's Gaza trip sums up the dangerous narcissism of our woke elite
Bored with saving the planet, Greta Thunberg now wants to save Gaza. Yes, Sweden's prophetess of doom has a new moral crusade.
It's no longer the coming heat death of the Earth that keeps her up at night – it's Israel's 'live-streamed genocide' in Gaza, as she calls it.
She and a gaggle of self-righteous pals have set sail for that benighted strip of land. They departed Sicily yesterday, their boat a riot of keffiyehs and Palestine flags. They hope to dock in Gaza in a week's time.
Their aim is nothing less than to 'break the Israeli blockade' of Gaza. 'We are seeing a systematic starvation of two million people. Every single one of us has a moral obligation to do everything we can to fight for a free Palestine', said Ms Thunberg.
Of all the smug stunts of the faux-virtuous activist class, this is surely the most preposterous. The idea that 12 woke fainthearts from Europe might 'liberate' Gaza would be funny if it were not so dangerous.
What does Ms Thunberg plan to do when she gets there? Bellow: 'HOW DARE YOU' at a column of IDF soldiers? Such daft antics might work on the self-hating political elites of the West who love nothing more than being told off by eco-pompous children.
But it won't wash with the army of the Jewish State that is in hot pursuit of the anti-Semitic terrorists that butchered more than a thousand Israelis on October 7 2023. Game of Thrones star, Liam Cunningham, is on the boat too. So he's gone from doing fantasy drama to doing fantasy politics.
He cosplayed as the 'onion knight' in that TV show – now he's cosplaying as a white knight who might rescue the wretched of Gaza from Israel's cruel grip.
This is sanctimony on the high seas. It is oceangoing virtue-signalling. It's a self-serving stunt masquerading as a daring act of charity. It will achieve precisely nothing for people in Gaza. If Gaza's two million inhabitants really are being 'systematically starved' – they aren't – then how on earth will a small boat carrying little more than boxes of spare keffiyehs and turbo-smug activists help them?
The aim of these seafaring missionaries is less to draw attention to the undoubted suffering of people in Gaza than to advertise their own puffed-up moral rectitude. The boat Greta and chums originally intended to sail on – before it was allegedly damaged in a drone strike near Malta – was called 'Conscience'.
That sums up the colossal immodesty and self-regard of the Gaza saviours. These unmerry few fancy themselves as the 'conscience' of humanity. I reckon that boat was called 'Conscience' because 'Look How Wonderful and Caring We Are!' wouldn't fit on the hull.
The most hilarious part of this watery clown show is that as these narcissists cross the Mediterranean wailing 'Feed Gaza!', that's exactly what Israel is doing.
Israel has handed out millions of meals over the past week through its Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). In the first four days, the GHF gave an astonishing 2,170,822 meals to Gaza's needy. If these numbers stay consistent, then in the seven days Greta and her apostles are on their stupid boat, Israel will give Gazans close to four million meals.
What a perfect illustration of the hollow virtue of 21st-century activism: as the Israel-haters bloviate on their boat to any media channel that will listen, Israel does the hard graft of feeding Gaza.
As they take selfies of themselves sobbing into their keffiyehs over what a uniquely barbarous nation Israel is, Israel is literally saving Palestinian lives. They do moral pantomime, for likes and clicks – Israel does actual aid, with very little thanks.
Rarely has the pointless and performative nature of modern Left activism been so gloriously exposed. All that these boat people have to offer to Gaza is cheap slogans and lame platitudes. They can't eat those, Greta. It's clear now that the old omnicause of 'the climate' has been replaced by the new omnicause of hating Israel.
It's out with the hemp sweaters, in with the keffiyeh. Out with the hysterics about billions dying at the altar of modernity, in with the equally shrill claim that millions of Palestinians will perish as a result of Israeli wickedness.
I can't be the only person who finds it chilling that the world's only Jewish nation has become the target of rich, bored Westerners' fashionable rage. This activism isn't just risible – it's dangerous.
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