Greta Thunberg, having apparently solved climate change, has now turned her attention to Middle East geopolitics. She is sailing into one of the most dangerous war zones on earth aboard what can only be described as a ‘selfie flotilla’.

Her crew includes a journalist from Al Jazeera, the state-funded Qatari outlet that routinely serves as a platform for Hamas propaganda, and an activist who traveled to Lebanon to mourn the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Their objective is clear: generate headlines, provoke confrontation, and frame Israel as the aggressor, while ignoring the reality on the ground.

This is not a humanitarian mission. It is a reckless and theatrical stunt that emboldens Hamas, undermines international law, and does nothing to support the people of Gaza. The goal is not to deliver aid. It is to deliver a narrative.

Under international law, Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is both legal and necessary. It is grounded in customary international law, including the 1909 London Declaration and the 1994 San Remo Manual, which govern the conduct of naval warfare. 

Climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the Stop Israel demonstration against Israel's participation in the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Malmo, Sweden, May 9, 2024. (credit: TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS)
Climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the Stop Israel demonstration against Israel's participation in the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Malmo, Sweden, May 9, 2024. (credit: TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS)
In 2011, a United Nations panel led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer reviewed Israel’s enforcement of the blockade after the Mavi Marmara incident. The panel concluded that the blockade "was imposed as a legitimate security measure to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea" and that its implementation "complied with the requirements of international law."

The IDF, therefore, has every legal and moral right to intercept Greta’s vessel before it breaches that blockade.

This flotilla, though, is not about peace or aid. It is about optics, politics, and provocation.

Is Greta aware that Hamas hijacks humanitarian aid, stockpiles supplies for its fighters, and sells food at inflated prices to fund its war effort? Are Gazans beaten or shot for trying to collect aid outside Hamas control? That fuel and medicine routinely go to rocket teams and tunnel infrastructure rather than civilians?

And for someone so concerned with emissions, does she realize how many tons of carbon Hamas’s rockets have spewed into the atmosphere? Or the environmental devastation caused by the October 7th massacre?

If she genuinely cared about helping Gazans, Greta would support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint US-Israel initiative which has already delivered more than 9 million meals in just over a week, for the first time bypassing Hamas entirely, by distributing aid directly to civilians.

Where was Greta when Hamas looted aid convoys? Or when civilians were tortured for accessing food outside of Hamas' control? Silent. Because those facts do not support the narrative she is helping advance.

She knows exactly what she is doing. This is not a naive act of idealism. It is a deliberate effort to side with those manipulating global perception while holding their own people hostage.

If Greta truly cared about human rights, there are far more urgent destinations for her vessel.

She could sail to Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthis, who also fire rockets at Israel, are causing a real famine. She could dock in Tehran, where women are brutalized for refusing to wear the hijab. She could visit Nigeria, where Boko Haram still enslaves children. Or she could speak out on behalf of the hostages still held captive in Gaza, under the most brutal of conditions by Hamas.

But she will not. Those causes do not come with trending hashtags or media-friendly photo opportunities. They require real moral courage, not curated activism.

Greta Thunberg has every right to protest. But when she uses that right to serve as a willing agent of Hamas, a designated terror organization committed to destroying Israel and murdering Jews, she forfeits the claim to moral leadership.

This is not activism. It is complicity.

The people of Gaza deserve more than shallow solidarity from foreign influencers. They need protection from the very group Greta is helping legitimize. They need food, security, and a path to a better future, not another Western activist sailing in with a camera and an agenda.

Arsen Ostrovsky is a human rights lawyer and CEO of The International Legal Forum, an NGO and global coalition of lawyers, combating terror and antisemitism.

John Spencer is executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute. He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.