Why are they so obsessed with her?

Powerful men line up to mock an activist. Why? Greta Thunberg’s stand for Palestine exposes not just injustice but also the fragile egos and deep misogyny of those who uphold it.

It was a small ship. A British-flagged yacht named Madleen, loaded with a symbolic amount of aid, a few activists, and more moral clarity than the institutions that once defined the West. On board were Greta Thunberg, Rima Hassan, and ten others, sailing toward Gaza through international waters. Their intent was to break a blockade that has turned a coastal strip into an open grave. The Israeli navy intercepted them on June 3. They boarded the boat and rerouted it to Ashdod.

In a pre-recorded message released shortly after the interception, Thunberg spoke with the clarity that so often eludes the political class: “If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by Israeli occupational forces or forces that support Israel.” She asked her friends and comrades to pressure Sweden for her release.

Greta Thunberg as she is being deported from Israel, 10 June 2025.

The Israeli foreign ministry circulated photos of Thunberg in a life jacket, smiling next to a soldier who offered her a sandwich. “Selfie yacht,” they mocked. “Meagre cargo,” they noted, as if the point had been groceries! A European parliamentarian, Rima Hassan, and ten activists were arrested in international waters and paraded as fools.

Trump chimed in from the sidelines. “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg,” he said. Not long ago, he had mocked her as “a young, angry person” who should take an anger management class.

Piers Morgan went further. Responding to her video, he wrote: “Oh shut up, @GretaThunberg – you attention-seeking narcissist. What an insult to the actual hostages in Gaza who really WERE kidnapped. This stupid stunt is all about your ego, and will make zero difference to the plight of innocent Palestinians.”

Morgan then invited the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, onto his program and continued his attacks on Thunberg.

Piers Morgan: “This was a publicity stunt that only benefited Greta Thunberg. She knew that [the ship] would never go near Gaza. Why is she grinning like a Cheshire cat in all the pictures?”

Francesca Albanese, visibly upset and angry: “You should not be insulting the facial expression of anyone. I’m an international law expert, and you called me here just to talk about Greta Thunberg. Why are you so obsessed with her? Why don’t you want to talk about Gaza?”

Remember that it was U.S. Senator and heavyweight Lindsey Graham last week who snarled at Thunberg. This week, it’s Morgan, Trump, and Katz.

Greta Thunberg has been vocal about Palestine for a long time. She has insisted, again and again, that climate change is not just about carbon levels or policy targets. It is about justice. It is about human suffering. And Palestine, she has said, is a cosmos of the worst that makes the world as it is. The dispossession. The blockade. The impunity. The ecological devastation. It is all there. To her, the connection is common sense.

But this common sense is what gets eclipsed. The moment she speaks on Palestine, the backlash intensifies. She is called a narcissist. A celebrity. A child who does not understand the world.

But it raises a question that lingers longer than their outbursts: why do these men hate her so much?

Two reasons. First, they are misogynistic. There is no surprise in that, is there? While Thunberg is part of a huge solidarity group, Trump, Katz, and Piers Morgan are part of a popular misogyny group who find great joy and comfort in attacking, mocking, and ridiculing women of any age. Shame is not a place reserved for this bunch.

Second, by focusing solely on Thunberg, they recycle the "girl hero" myth.¹ This myth can be empowering but is ultimately limiting. It highlights her exceptionalism and the hostility she faces while obscuring the vast networks of support, collaboration, and influence that sustain such activism. There is no question about the integrity and courage of Thunberg, but it should also be acknowledged that she is part of a much larger, intergenerational, and transcontinental movement, where friendship and solidarity—not lone defiance—are the sustaining forces.

Greta Thunberg has become the cipher onto which powerful, wealthy men project their insecurities, their resentments, their fear of a moral order they can no longer command. To ridicule her is to assert hierarchy. It is also a reminder of who should speak, and who should be silent. And when she speaks on Palestine—a cause already maligned, racialized, and criminalized—their fury doubles. Because in her voice, there are millions of people with a heart.

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Syria-Turkey’s energy deal and the Kurds

At the end of May, Ahmad al-Sharaa arrived in Istanbul. Syria’s interim president—once the emir of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham—was received not as a former insurgent, but as a head of state. Erdoğan met him inside the Dolmabahçe Palace. Behind closed doors, with full delegations present, they discussed what their governments now call a new chapter.

This was al-Sharaa’s third visit to Turkey this year, following stops in Ankara and Antalya. His foreign and defense ministers joined him. Erdoğan brought the full state machinery to the table: foreign affairs, defense, intelligence, energy, industry, national security.

The meeting followed the US and EU decisions to lift sanctions on Syria, announced by Trump in Riyadh on May 13 and echoed in Brussels a week later. Turkey hailed the shift. Erdoğan was thanked directly by al-Sharaa for helping secure it. In return, Turkey secured more than symbolism: a gas and electricity deal binding Syrian reconstruction to Turkish infrastructure and capital. Turkey will provide two billion cubic metres of natural gas annually, plus 1,000 megawatts of electricity for short-term relief. A 400-kilovolt line linking the two countries is being completed. The plan is for Turkish firms to have a foothold in mining, phosphate, and energy sectors across northern Syria.

But beyond this infrastructure is a more combustible matter: the delayed integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian Armed Forces. As you remember, on March 11, al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement that would incorporate the entire Kurdish-led administration—civil and military—into the Syrian state. It included provisions for border control, energy assets, and shared security structures. Implementation was scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

That timeline has since collapsed. The SDF insists on political decentralization as a precondition, yani autonomy in form, if not in name. Abdi has publicly rejected any “quick fixes,” calling instead for a national framework that respects Kurdish autonomy and guarantees the organized survival of SDF forces. In his words, Syria must become “a decentralized and pluralistic state” if it is to avoid repeating the cycle of repression and marginalization.

Al-Sharaa’s government has pushed back. A statement from the presidency in late April rejected “separatist cantons” and federalism without national consensus. It affirmed Syria’s unity as non-negotiable and warned that the SDF’s demands directly contradict the agreement they signed. Damascus argues that what the SDF calls decentralization is, in fact, soft partition—an attempt to convert battlefield gains into constitutional entitlements.

We are in a very volatile situation where a slow confrontation brews. Analysts speak of “a dangerous illusion” that the Kurds can stall until Syria splinters into manageable pieces. Meanwhile, Damascus, empowered by new alliances and potential foreign capital, insists that it will not allow fragmentation. The US, via its new Syrian envoy Barrack, who is also the US ambassador in Turkey, warned the SDF not to overplay its hand and expects a deal with Damascus asap.

1. Locke, Jill. 2023. “Beyond Heroes and Hostility: Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate, and The Transnational Politics of Girl Power.” NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 31 (2): 117–27.