Once again, anti-Semitic postings have been circulated on the international accounts of Fridays for Future. In a longer statement “Why a Climate Justice Group Is Posting About Palestine”, there is pretty much everything: from anti-Israeli historical slander to a call to support the BDS movement, which has been classified as anti-Semitic by the German Bundestag – and last but not least, there is even a rhetorical rapprochement with Hamas. While Israel is accused of “colonialism” and “imperialism”, the violence of Hamas is not condemned. One even quotes the writer Ghassan Kanafani, the former spokesperson of the terrorist organisation PFLP, which separated Jewish from non-Jewish hostages during an aeroplane hijacking in Entebbe.
A second quote from an Indian writer then quite openly lays out the terror against Israel: “Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is theatrical. You need an audience. What can you do if you don’t have an audience? People have the right to resist their destruction”. Fridays for Future reiterates this in its own words, “Palestinians may not always be so privileged to have non-violence as a reasonable option.” If non-violence is not a reasonable option, violence must be the only one – and what is that supposed to allude to if not Hamas’ terror against Israel?
And finally one writes: “Our hearts are with the martyrs and the deceased. The violence and the lives lost are a tragedy and their blood will not be forgotten. May their memory be a blessing and a revolution.”
The statement ends with a call to visit the website of the BDS movement, which is commented on as follows:
It is true that one opposes anti-Semitism in any form and possibly some BDS movements would have been co-opted or deprived of their intended purpose. But: “Since we are based in many countries of the world, we primarily listen to the colonised and oppressed people (in this case especially the Palestinians) who demand non-violent civil disobedience actions from the rest of the world.”
The German association distanced itself on Twitter, even calling content of the post anti-Semitic.
But that doesn’t end it. Already a fortnight ago, the online portal TE showed the manifold problematic entanglements of the German FFF organisation – Greta Thunberg posted an anti-Israeli post and the international account was already spreading BDS propaganda. This new FFF post does not contain a single gaffe or a single ill-conceived sentence. There is a system to it.At the very least, the international movement is steeped in anti-Semitic resentment – a small distancing from a single posting by the German federation is not enough.