The New York Times (12/2/19) apparently doesn’t think Greta Thunberg is an icon Gaza desperately needs.
When Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was fighting for climate justice in her home country and the world stage, the New York Times gave her top billing. She co-authored an op-ed (8/19/21), and was the subject of a long interview (10/30/20).
Acclaimed film director Darren Aronofsky wrote a piece for the Times (12/2/19) headlined “Greta Thunberg Is the Icon the Planet Desperately Needs.” Seeing a photo of her at 15, staging her first environmental protest, he said: “Here was the image—one of hope, commitment and action—I needed to see. An image that could spark a movement.” Her work was highlighted constantly in the Paper of Record (e.g., New York Times, 2/18/19, 8/29/19, 9/18/19, 1/21/20, 4/9/21, 11/4/21, 6/30/23).
Now Thunberg is sailing to Gaza with a group of 11 other activists in what AP (6/2/25) called an “effort to bring in some aid and raise ‘international awareness’ over the ongoing humanitarian crisis.” The Israeli blockade of Gaza and the ongoing military strikes on the devastated territory is leading to a massive starvation crisis (UN News, 6/1/25; FAIR.org, 4/25/25).
No fawning coverage of Thunberg’s activism from the Times this time. No Hollywood big shot saying that he hoped her trip would “spark a movement.”
‘Professional tantrum-thrower’
The right-wing press is upset about Thunberg’s voyage and Palestine advocacy, of course. The Israeli military “says it is ‘prepared’ to raid the ship, as it has done with previous freedom flotilla efforts,” reported the Daily Mail (6/4/25), adding IDF spokesperson Gen. Effie Defrin’s remark: “We have gained experience in recent years, and we will act accordingly.” Israeli security sources have reportedly vowed to stop the vessel before it gets to Gaza (Jerusalem Post, 6/4/25, 6/5/25).
The British Spectator‘s Julie Burchill (6/4/25) said:
When we consider child stars through the ages, the girls generally age better than the boys; Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Billie Piper all made the seamless switch from winsome cuties to gifted entertainers. The same cannot be said of Greta Thunberg, though she’s certainly remained consistently irritating. Neither a singer nor a thespian, she is a professional tantrum-thrower, more comparable to the fictional horrors Violet Elizabeth Bott and Veruca Salt than the trio of troupers listed above.
“Hope Greta and her friends can swim!” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (X, 6/1/25), a ghoulish statement suggesting that an attack on the ship was imminent. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (6/2/25) called the message a “grotesque social media post suggesting a possible Israeli state terrorism attack on peaceful international activists aboard a humanitarian aid ship bound for Gaza.”
The pro-Israel media criticism website HonestReporting (6/4/25) called Thunberg’s participation in the aid mission an “anti-Israel publicity stunt.” “Greta Thunberg’s beliefs are as shallow as her need for attention,” said Fox News host Greg Gutfeld (6/3/25). Rita Panahi of Australia’s Sky News (6/4/25) called Thunberg a “doom goblin.”
These comments aren’t just mean-spirited but ominous, considering that the group’s previous mission was aborted when their ship suffered a drone attack (Reuters, 5/6/25), and an aid flotilla to Gaza 15 years ago ended up with Israeli special forces killing ten activists (Al Jazeera, 5/30/20).
From star to nonentity
Greta Thunberg (AP, 6/2/25): “No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide.”
And yet while the New York Times (5/2/25) covered the aborted mission and Thunberg’s involvement, it has not yet reported on the current mission and Thunberg’s role. As noted earlier, AP (6/2/25) covered the launch of the current mission, with Thunberg aboard, which was re-run in the Washington Post (6/2/25). She has done interviews with other media from the boat (Democracy Now!, 6/4/25).
How could she have gone from a star in the Times‘ pages to such a nonentity? Given how much attention she received in the Times for leading a movement for climate justice, one might think that her dedication to the strife in Gaza might warrant some attention, too.
For activists and journalists who have covered the press response to the crisis in Gaza, this is all part of the Palestine exception, where liberal groups and outlets might show concern for humanitarian crises around the world, but lower their outrage or stay completely silent on the subject of Palestine.
FAIR (5/22/25) recently noted another example of this phenomenon at the Times. An op-ed by its publisher, A.G. Sulzberger (5/13/25), decried attacks on the freedom of the press around the world, but omitted that the biggest killer of journalists in the world today is the Israeli government.
‘Money from Hamas’
The New York Times (5/14/25) treated the idea that Hamas might be bankrolling an American children’s entertainer as a plausible allegation.
The New York Times (5/14/25) recently covered the backlash children’s entertainer Rachel Griffin Accurso, aka Ms. Rachel, has received from pro-Israel activists for using her platform to speak out for Palestinian children. The most eyebrow-raising bit from the piece:
Last month, the advocacy group StopAntisemitism labeled Accurso the “Antisemite of the Week” and, the New York Post reported, sent a letter urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Accurso is receiving funding to further Hamas’s agenda.
Accurso “posted nearly 50 times about the children of Gaza, most of which is filled with misinformation from Hamas, and only five times about Israeli children,” the group, which monitors statements about Israel on social media accounts of prominent figures, said on its website. “In the case of the Israeli children, she only posted due to widespread public backlash, never condemning Hamas and the Palestinians.”
Accurso, 42, in an emailed response denied having received money from Hamas. “This accusation is not only absurd, it’s patently false,” she said.
It’s impossible to imagine that if Accurso had been speaking about Ukrainian children suffering under Russia’s invasion, the Times or any other US establishment outlet would entertain the notion that she was working on behalf of the Azov Battalion or another extremist Ukrainian faction. Alas, this is how the Palestine exception works in US media like the Times.
Accurso and Thunberg’s advocacy for Palestinian civilians is dangerous to those cheerleading the slaughter in Gaza, because their status as clear-eyed and big-hearted people give public legitimacy to the Palestinian cause. The Times invoking the Palestinian exception against them is a part of a larger effort to keep public opinion from turning against Israeli militarism.
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What a horrible country the US has become. Both empty and despicable.
Lindsay Graham is a vile shadow of a man absolutely disgusting. We have a president I am ashamed of. We are the laughing stock of the world.
Has become? How did you forget its history of lynch mobs, of McCarthyism, of imperialism, of slavery?
You know we have a pub in Britain that’s older than America.
America is a child nation that is still in growing pains.
Sometimes a child spits the dummy out of the pram.
Lets see how it pans out.
For Americans. You have to realise you are not the centre of the world. You are not the most powerful nation in the world (you never were).
Thank you so much Lilian. One of my ancestors, the brother of my Grandma, also made it to the USA, he was even helped by a local Nazi in November 1938 who warned him (as he loved where he was, nature, and did not want to leave.)
Germany today is not better. The idea to look aside and never report on actual atrocities the Netanyahu-Gantz-Gallant etc government did as an answer to the Hamas terror killings is so horrible. Germany talked for months only about Antisemitism in Germany, while the real problem since years are far Right parties who want to “throw out all Muslims”. This is unbelievable. Of course we got Antisemitism, but it did not get worse, this was only a way to “look aside” and, in fact, close the eyes as so many trapped in Gaza were and are killed. Our media, TV stations paid by the people, and so many art scenes and post-structuralist universities – completely failed. And even now there is no word of excuse. Since a few weeks they start with: “oh! there might be hunger in Gaza! How bad!”… Media, and the majority of intellectuals… Lindsey Graham is just a bit more honest, ugly as all these statements are. Many think the same, alas, but are too intelligent to say so – they prefer to talk of “the right to defend yourself”.
Nobody denies the right to defend your country… And they know it. So the more intelligent ones than Graham can disregard Thunberg and all resistance – but they hold each options open… Later they will say “of course I found this horrible”… Graham is a somewhat more stupid one, full of himself, but huge majorities in Germany (and many in the USA) are the same. They give a damn about lives of people who are not “our identity” or “one of us”.
Thank you for posting, and I do hope you are well!
Greta Thunberg drank her own kool-aid a long time ago. She is 100% attention-seeking at this point. Someone needs to tell her to grow up and actually do something that will help.
Explain why you think her actions are contrary to helping Palestinians.
This is just another vile genocide supporter who deserves to be disrespected whereever they go.
I got onto Fair when I was following a NY University. I’ve long since forgotten the site and Fair.
I am glad to be back following. I am pleased to be back receiving emails from this site.
Keep up the good work.
No surprise here. The New York Times so frequently displays myopia on certain subjects that the condition may be diagnosed as chronic. Israel v Palestine is foremost among those subjects.
Recalling in 2008 when Israeli gunboats attack in international waters the Dignity, an unarmed vessel carrying aid to Gaza, with former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney aboard. The Times gave the Israeli governments version of the event.
A few years later, when a similar attack occurred, the Times carried the statement of then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel’s action was in accordance with longstanding international law of the seas. I sent the following to the Times editor:
“Who advised Secretary Clinton that Israel was acting lawfully? Her daughter’s father-in-law? And where did he obtain such a reading? While browsing in the Leavenworth Prison Library?”
The Times ignored my message with the same insouciance that it does all news items involving Israeli criminality.
Typo in my name. Should read “Edwards” — error probably explains absence of black helicopters landing in my yard.
I am completely flumoxed about the Gaza/Israel situation because despite the horrors being inflicted on Gaza daily, despite the fact that many countries and news organizations are calling this genocide and ethnic cleansing, Israel still seems to be presented as the sympathetic party here.
Not surprising that NYT opted out of the news business: This is one of the reasons I stopped reading the Times long ago. It is an unreliable source on anything regarding any event that its owners and their handlers have anything to do with. A stain on the word “journalism”: its coverage, and/or silence, is too often bought and paid for.
The same – or worse – in Germany.
Greta Thunberg was praised by our media from TAZ Berlin to ZEIT Hamburg etc. for Fridays for future. But the first statement Greta Thunberg gave on Israel/Gaza (she never defended the horrible Hamas terror attacks in any way) – ZEIT Hamburg (a in Europe famous liberal weekly which decades ago was quite readable) disregarded her. “Antisemitic” was the brand, and that was that, 2023. All German media followed. Nowhere was the disinformation, the forgetting of what really happened, uglier than in Germany. But Annalena Baerbock, foreign secretary until March 2025, will get a nice job at UN…
The US bias is surely bad, but if you would live in Germany you would simply stop reading 99% of all media.
Ever so slowly – like Janine Jackson said on counterspin some weeks ago – they will all pretend they were never saying what they – said. Well, they did. “Icons” are thrown away as soon as they don’t fit – like with Greta Thunberg. Who, by the way, was slightly ridiculed even in the FFF days. Because the 800 millions who, to take the most senseless capitalist destruction, fly like there was no tomorrow each year, while 7 billions don’t or can’t, love self-staging and “nice that we talked about it”. They hate to be told what they actually do. Thunberg has no love for these double moral millions, and she is right.
These last 30 years got us a new kind of intellectuals. Talking “most subversive”, embracing all very good things like transgender rights, but forgetting poverty on earth and their own actions – in short neoliberals who wear nice shawls – are the intellectual mainstream in the USA and Europe, etc.
Of course Greta Thunberg does not fit in that. So out with her. An old game.
My LTE: Disappointed to learn of your vilifying someone who should rather be celebrated. At her young age, Greta Thunberg is addressing problems that confront the planet and the human species on it. Instead of celebrating her work and conscience, the New York Times ridicules her efforts. As I understand it, the New York Times has banned terms like “genocide” from its copy. Guess the editors don’t watch much Al Jazeera. That, or they’re trying to reprise their role in the leadup to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Whose stable of reporters – Friedman, Brooks, Krauthammer and the rest – got the issue 180 degrees wrong. The reporters were punished for their shortsightedness? On the contrary, they were rewarded. Friedman with one, or more, book deals. Brooks also as I remember it.