Animosity Against Jews Demonstrates Leftist Icon Greta Thunberg’s Extremism

Greta Thunberg, once the darling of the climate change movement, has revealed herself as virulently anti-Israel, which should make her a pariah in any legitimate social or political cause. Since the October 2023 Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians, including children and infants, Thunberg, now 21 years old, has called for “crushing Zionism” and repeatedly accused Israel of “genocide.”

Her latest episode of malevolence was on display earlier this month in Mannheim, Germany, when she publicly cursed out the nations of Israel and Germany. She targeted the German government with public profanity over its support for the Jewish state.

Thunberg’s anti-Israel expression was not a one-off for her. Immediately following the massacre of Israelis by Hamas last year, Greta stood against Israel, the victim. Last September, she was arrested during a protest at Copenhagen University organized by Students Against the Occupation that demanded the school cut off all ties with Israel.

In May at Stockholm University, she urged the same by writing, “We demand that the Stockholm University administration cut all ties, agreements and collaborations with the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel.” She also protested Eurovision for allowing an Israeli singer to participate in a singing contest.

Greta has not escaped blowback for this behavior. Last September, the group StopAntiSemitism named her the “Anti-Semite” of the week and stated, “she has sadly transformed her activism into a platform for vile Jew-hatred.” After this month’s episode, the organization wrote that “someone should remind Greta that Israel is a global leader in solving climate challenges,” as though that would somehow get her to rethink her priorities.

Thunberg has stated she is against the “horrific attacks by hamas” (sic) and denied knowledge about an antisemitic symbol she included in a social media post.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there are nuanced differences among being anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic. At a minimum, Greta has been flirting with the latter.

That comports with many others in the climate change movement, spearheaded by the United Nations — a bastion of animus against Israel and Jewish people. One of many examples was last year’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai, where I listened to a group of panelists excoriate Israel with zero mention of the Hamas massacre of Israelis just weeks prior.

Thunberg has been operating in an adult world starting as a young teenager. In 2018, she presented at the UN climate summit in Poland. The following year, she famously sailed across the Atlantic Ocean without fossil fuels (except for the materials and construction of the boat), to go before the UN General Assembly in New York, where she gave her petulant “How dare you” speech. 

Bratty, obnoxious behavior from teens is nothing unique to Thunberg, and all of us can look back at cringe-worthy moments of our youth. Greta was given a pass because she was a celebrity youngster whose climate change agenda is embraced by the UN, most of the global media, and governments the world over.

Her global climate fame earned her TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2019, which placed her in the pantheon of numerous historic figures, for good or ill, including American presidents, other heads of state, heroes, and mass-murderers. The magazine just named President-elect Donald Trump its 2024 recipient, a second time for him.

Legacy media outlets such as TIME are no longer the standout, influential publications they were in the 20th century. Instead, TIME is a salient example of media that has jettisoned genuine journalism to become a just another organ for left-of-center politics. Thunberg’s Person-of-the-Year honor was more about the magazine promoting climate change policies than her as a newsmaker.

Four years ago, I wrote an empathetic review of the Hulu documentary “I Am Greta,” about her challenging life and rapid rise to international fame. I felt sorry for young Greta, who is on the autism spectrum and continually morose. I believe she was being exploited by the climate change industry to further its anti-freedom, anti-economic growth agenda that empowers politicians and bureaucrats, enriches corporate chieftains and NGO grifters, and manipulates and frightens credulous students of all ages.

Now that she’s a grown-up, Thunberg has translated her climate stardom to highlight something she cares about more than the planet these days: attacking Israel for responding to the violent, unprovoked aggression by Hamas 14 months ago against unarmed Israeli civilians. At this point, Thunberg is a full hour past her proverbial 15 minutes of fame. I hope she gets genuine help and finds fulfillment. But she doesn’t deserve worldwide attention.

Peter Murphy is Senior Fellow at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit entity that promotes free-market, technological solutions to environment and energy challenges.