In the end, the Israeli Coast Guard will probably have to escort Greta Thunberg and her “Freedom Flotilla Coalition” safely back to shore

Who is Greta Thunberg? Everyone knows she's the figurehead of the climate movement. But she's also an "autistic, bipolar human rights activist," as she describes herself on her Instagram profile. Now she's sailing from Sicily to Gaza with eleven other equally fanatical-looking Palestine romantics who, unlike Thunberg, have yet to offer a medical excuse for their moral disorientation.

The odyssey against the dramatic backdrop of the Mediterranean, past Frontex and refugee boats, is meticulously documented on Instagram, including live tracking. Because this journey serves nothing other than media-based, symbolic self-promotion. Thunberg and her United Colors of Benetton sailing crew make no secret of this.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is nothing but “revolutionary imagination,” which we all need more of, says a magical-thinking supporter in one of the countless Instagram promotional clips, in which she calls Israel only “izrl” out of disgust.

The Coalition knows that it is politically powerless, which is why it has no choice but to imaginarily break through the signature blockade of the present – ​​the war in Gaza, which it wants to understand as genocide, perpetrated by what it sees as the illegitimate settler state of Israel – and the alleged silence of the international community.

At its core, this convoluted, abstract mission is a profound messianic fantasy of redemption: Once the blockade is broken and Israel disappears—first symbolically, then in reality—which most Coalition members openly long for, all other ills in the world, including climate change, will supposedly vanish into thin air. Good material for an advanced seminar on antisemitism.

So everyone knows: The Freedom Flotilla Coalition will never arrive in Gaza, and even if it did, the food supplies transported in the small ship "Madleen," supposedly named after Gaza's first female fisherman, would probably have been used up by the crew themselves by then.

And then, of course, there's the fear of the Israeli army. The "Tel Aviv regime" makes him nervous, says a serious-looking Irishman in a linen outfit in another video – a phrase that really sounds anything but threatening. They're already training for the eventuality of a fleet interception. For failure, in other words, which is already planned for.

In between, guitars are played on deck; Thiago from Brazil, who attended Nasrallah's funeral in Beirut in February, sings the chorus. It's "Break the Siege of the Silence," and the others hum along, moved. At sunrise the next day, folkloric Arabic music plays, selected by Yasemin, a German activist who seems familiar because she's the one who shouts the loudest in Berlin whenever pro-Palestinian groups occupy university halls or prevent events with Israeli participants.

Thunberg gives live-stream interviews with a trembling voice, proudly declaring that she is risking her life and saying genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation so quickly that she chokes.

Meanwhile, the other crew members film each other wearing "I Love Gaza" T-shirts and repeatedly cry as they talk about their essential mission to bring solidarity and love to the people of Gaza. There are also hourly updates on threatening situations. Wrapped in thick life jackets, the guerrilla fighters explain that they have been repeatedly surrounded by terrifying drones since Tuesday evening and frantically demand more media attention, saying that this is their only protection from the Israelis. Yet, in the end, their only protection will likely be the Israeli Coast Guard escorting them safely to shore.

All of this is more funny than serious, probably thinking not only the Mossad, but also Hamas. It's reminiscent of the 1970s, of identity-less anti-imperialists from Europe and Latin America who traveled to the Middle East to fight for the Palestinian cause. Of non-Arab, middle-aged women and men in Arafat scarves who are now either flirted with or laughed at by Arabs on Sonnenallee in Berlin-Neukölln.

It's also a reminder that since October 7, Thunberg and her fellow sailors have barely said a word about the fact that Palestinian professional terrorists are keeping half-dead Israelis in tunnels and cages like animals and openly admitting they want to kill all the world's Jews. Instead, they prefer to appropriate, in the name of the Palestinian people, the suffering of the Jews once persecuted by the Nazis.

Or is it merely a coincidence that the route of the " Madelen " is almost the same as the route taken by the "Exodus" almost 80 years ago? The overcrowded, dilapidated refugee ship set sail from France in the summer of 1947 to bring nearly 5,000 European Holocaust survivors across the Mediterranean to the British Mandate of Palestine.

A few kilometers from its destination, it was intercepted by British colonial guards and, after brutal fighting on board, captured. The Jewish passengers were deported to German internment camps, in Pöppendorf and Am Stau near Lübeck, demonstrating the coldness and lack of empathy of the British Allies, who had just achieved victory in the war.

The "Exodus" became a symbol of the Jewish will to survive, and just ten months later, "revolutionary imagination" became a modern, democratic Jewish state – the prime example of a successful anti-colonial liberation struggle. It's quite possible, then, that Thunberg and her crew secretly hope to soon find themselves in prison in Pöppendorf or Am Stau.