Greta Thunberg, in a video posted on social media, said she and other members of the Freedom flotilla en-route to Gaza have been kidnapped by Israeli forces. This comes after the Daily Mail reported that several Israeli vessels surrounded the ship Madleen, prompting the crew to raise an alarm.

Thunberg shared a pre-recorded video appealing for international help. “My name is Greta Thunberg, and I am from Sweden,” she said in the clip. “If you see this video, we are being 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.”

  • @misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    Thunberg and crew are heroes in my eyes. No doubt a very extreme form of political protest, obviously they knew the outcome here. Even they couldn’t predict blatant piracy. Hope she is returned safely…

  • @Korkki@lemmy.ml
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    1194 days ago

    “The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,” the ministry added.

    They will toss the aid to the wood chipper and laugh about it, won’t they…

    • @Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Quite a thing to create the world’s most dire need for humanitarian aid in the history of the species and then criticize any aid as tiny in comparison to the need you’ve manufactured

    • @geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      554 days ago

      Israel has a reputation for not even following through on these basic minute propaganda gestures. Because they are comically evil.

      • @Anomalocaris@lemm.ee
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        73 days ago

        remember that time where they piled a bunch of boxes with a printout that said medical aid, then have soldiers move them into an hospital they evacuated, showing how weightless they are. and how useful will those empty boxes will be in the hospital they vacated

    • Aedis
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      4 days ago

      Nah they’ll actually dangle the food in front of starving people to draw a crowd and then bomb them.

      Fucking monsters.

    • @IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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      294 days ago

      Nah, they will give it to their ISIS aligned collaborators and then shoot anyone/bomb anyone else who goes near it.

      • @WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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        214 days ago

        They will then destroy Hamas. Once Hamas is destroyed, they will demand that the new group be destroyed before the war can end. They will then fund a third group to distribute aid.

        • @Almacca@aussie.zone
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          3 days ago

          Israel has repeatedly shown that they will stop at nothing short of completely wiping out every last Palestinian.

    • Kuori [she/her]
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      214 days ago

      of course not. they’ll use it to lure in more starving people to massacre

      death to israel

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
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      4 days ago

      The sheer chutzpah of “Not only are we arresting you for trying to clean up our mess, but it’s not like you brought enough mops anyway.”

  • @zephorah@lemm.ee
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    1644 days ago

    Why is everyone so hands off and permissive with Israel? Like they can do nothing wrong when they go out of their way to do wrong things?

    • reaper_cushions [he/him, comrade/them]
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      714 days ago

      For Germany: Israel is an indulgence for the Holocaust.

      For the USA: Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in a largely hostile region that is protected by international law.

      For the rest of Western Europe: They are vassals of the US, so naturally they don’t want to piss of their daddy.

      For everyone else: they don’t want to provoke the US either.

    • flandish
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      404 days ago

      manufactured consent and capitalist profit. it’s a cult.

    • @merc@sh.itjust.works
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      174 days ago

      Do you mean governments or people?

      People don’t have much power here. Other than boycotts, what can people do?

      For governments, Israel is fairly powerful. They have powerful lobbyists, and aren’t shy to leverage claims of antisemitism against anybody who speaks up against Israel. In many cases, there’s also the guilt over how jews were treated in WWII. This is one reason Germany is so incredibly pro-Israel. Then there’s the fact that Israel is still more-or-less a democracy, which makes it unique in the middle east. It’s the one country in the region pushing back against various Islamic fundamentalist goverments, movements and terrorist groups. Many countries don’t want to lose that “friend”.

      And then there’s spyware. Most of the best spyware in the world is produced in Israel. Some cynical people would say that countries don’t want to lose access to the world’s best producer of spyware. Some even more cynical people would say that that spyware has already been used on politicians and Israel is using it for blackmail. Who knows what the right level of cynicism is.

      • @0x0@lemmy.zip
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        13 days ago

        there’s also the guilt over how jews were treated in WWII.

        How many are still alive? That excuse has long expired.

        the region pushing back against various Islamic fundamentalist goverments

        You can thank the CIA for that.

        • @merc@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          How many are still alive? That excuse has long expired.

          It’s not individual guilt, it’s institutional guilt. In many other cases that’s a good thing. We want German kids to grow up learning about the holocaust and thinking “we can’t allow that to ever happen again”. I don’t think what’s happening in Gaza could happen in Germany because of what Germans are taught growing up.

          OTOH, in Israel they seem to only be taught that jews are victims and can never be perpetrators.

          You can thank the CIA for that.

          Yeah, they were involved. They were saving the world from the dangers of communism. Looking back, all the west really had to do was sit back and wait for the communist system to collapse. But, I wonder what the middle east would look like without the CIA’s interference. It sure seems unlikely it would be a land of healthy, stable democracies. Look at all the places where the CIA didn’t interfere. Countries ruled by strongmen is the rule rather than the exception.

          But, however we got here, that has been Israel’s traditional role. It was a democratic country with somewhat similar values to the west, nestled among Islamic Arab countries with very different values.

          • @0x0@lemmy.zip
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            12 days ago

            We want German kids to grow up learning about the holocaust and thinking “we can’t allow that to ever happen again”.

            I think they kind of overdid it 'cos know they activelly defend nazis…

    • @eldoom@lemmy.ml
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      194 days ago

      We just need to help god make the book of revelations happen so Jesus can come back!

      /s

        • @IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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          134 days ago

          While their statement is a hyperbolic and reductive statement about only the other side of the symbiotic relationship, we must also not strip Israel of its agency. Also, Israel≠Jews, as much as Israel tries to convince you they are the same.

          In the macro scale. Yes, Israel is propped up by the west as a powerful tool against other regional powers and the imperial system funnels funds into their upkeep.

          But it’s also true that in the micro scale. Politicians are more directly and personally rewarded to keep those funds flowing (AIPAC exists regardless of tropes) and Israel uses the leverage they have as one of the more valuable strategic tools to grant them leeway others wouldn’t have.

          It’s a two way street. Israel and The US/west aren’t parasites leeching off one or the other, they’re symbiotic.

          • barrbaric [he/him]
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            4 days ago

            Sure, there’s a two-way relationship, but the US is the global hegemon (or at least was until very recently), while Israel is a regional power. They may both influence each other, but the US has more say in the relationship.

  • @kreskin@lemmy.world
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    1474 days ago

    All they had to do was wait until the boat entered Israeli waters to do it legally. Why do it in international waters? Israelis seem to want to break laws just for the sake of showing they dont consider any laws to matter. In some ways they are worse than nazis. They are like perpetually angry butthurt toddlers with weapons.

    • @geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      4 days ago

      At no point would the boat enter Israeli waters. Only Palestinian waters.

      The illegal Israeli sea blockade is illegal for reason: it is not their water.

        • @RealSpiderLane@lemmy.zip
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          94 days ago

          Was gonna say, they’ve not been given any reason to care about international law.

          Although, I swear I saw that the ICC put out a warrant for Bibi.

      • @melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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        184 days ago

        You may be right. The whole world is on the brink ,deciding if we will move forward as a global “rule of law” or a global “might makes right” future.

        • @IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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          174 days ago

          We have always lived under “might makes right”. Ask any country that has been under the boot of western imperialism.

          This is just the collapse of the charade of “rule of law” as the stranglehold of the western might begins to slip.

    • @Anomalocaris@lemm.ee
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      193 days ago

      there’s no “legally” what, they enter Gaza territoral waters, only gaza has authority to regulate it’s territorial waters.

      Israel has no right to control Gaza’s waters.

    • @shadowfax13@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      this country is run and heavily populated with most vile criminals ever to exist

      when contemplating about what they are capable of, then think of them as the most disgusting mexican drug cartel not a country of law and human decency.

  • @RecipeForHate1@lemmy.ml
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    1084 days ago

    Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian activist, was also in that boat and was kidnapped by the Israeli state. That’s a crime against humanity.

  • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    214 days ago

    Israel has decided to grab the attention of some of the people who weren’t already outraged. It’s a bold more. I hope it works out the way I think it will.

      • @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        33 days ago

        I think there are people who support Greta who haven’t taken a side on the Israel / Palestine genocide. My hope is that their grabbing her will turn more people against their horrid actions in Gaza.

  • Why the fuck did she even go there? Did she think she would make a difference? She would be better off trying to become a military officer, and prepare defenses against future Israel invasion.

      • Fuck that! If you are going to hostile territory, at least go to fight…begging and reasoning with this rotten corrupted piece of shit shell of humanity will never work. AT LEAST FUCKING KILL SOME IDF!!!

    • @Hotrod54chevy@lemmy.ml
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      133 days ago

      Or she could be using her celebrity to draw attention to something going on in the world that doesn’t have enough attention shined on it maybe?

      • People KNOW! They are just racist and don’t care about the victims in Gaza.

        We need another approach. The world no longer cares how many bodies it pilles

          • Independence, sovereignty, just making it as hard as possible to kill and oppress.

            Overall, never play by their rules. You will never get anything done by begging the psychopaths in charge to stop hurting you. Telling them how much you are suffering, only spurs them on. You can’t count on democracy or the goodness of people either. There is no law and order.

            Gaza is probably doomed. You have to prepare yourself to defend your own life.

            • @rumimevlevi@lemmings.world
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              33 days ago

              Independence, sovereignty, just making it as hard as possible to kill and oppress.

              That’s not within the average joe and activists power to do

    • @Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      163 days ago

      She’s pitting the swedish embassy against the israeli government. If more people did it there would be one less genocide.

      • There’s better ways to kill yourself than being in the hands of Israel. It’s such a cruel fate for someone like her.

        She would have been more useful elsewhere too.

          • War in Ukraine? I mean, if you are going to die either way, might as well die fighting THE enemy, part of the ones that are behind nearly everything bad happening in the world, just so happen to be in a war you can join. Oh how perfect…and they are losing!

            • @Allero@lemmy.today
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              22 days ago

              So, she just chose one of two most cruel conflicts. Arguably, Palestinians face an even worse fate, with an extensive humanitarian crisis, than even the Ukrainians.

              Why do you specifically choose Ukraine over Palestine?

            • @rumimevlevi@lemmings.world
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              23 days ago

              if you are going to die either way, might as well die fighting THE enemy, part of the ones that are behind nearly everything bad happening in the world

              Those behind nearly everything bad happening in the world is the United Snake in the last half century . Not to whitewash Russian and China evilness in history

              Dying for Ukraine or for Palestine or any other occupied land is a noble death that require lot of courage

    • @CallMeButtLove@lemmy.world
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      104 days ago

      I can understand where the fear that she’ll be killed comes from, but I really don’t think that’s what will happen. She’s too high profile, and her and the others know it. That’s what’s part of what makes this such a bold move. They were basically daring Israel to do something about it. There is a legitimate chance of harm coming to them, but I really expect they’ll just be released in a few days.

    • Count Regal Inkwell
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      44 days ago

      Yeah I admire Greta, but anyone who’s been paying attention had to know this would eventually happen.

      Punch enough knife-tips and you’ll get cut. Greta wouldn’t shut up and wouldn’t sell out, now she’s going to die a lot.