Greta Thunberg with part of the crew of the ship Madleen, shortly before departure for Gaza, during the press conference on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images
Deputy Opinion Editor
Nora Berman
June 9, 2025
“My name is Greta Thunberg, and I am from Sweden. If you’re seeing this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped.”
That somber statement by Thunberg, a 22-year-old Swedish climate activist, appeared in one of 11 “SOS Call” videos uploaded after a boat bearing a symbolic amount of aid to Gaza — alongside high-profile activists like Thunberg — was intercepted by the Israeli navy late last night. In the videos, each of the 11 activists participating in the expedition on a boat called the Madleen, launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, describe themselves as having been “kidnapped” by “the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
Breathless social media posts about the boat’s interception flooded my feed. “This is the last image we have of the humanitarian crew,” one picture was ominously captioned. Posters begged for the international community to free the “hostages,” whom Israel has said will be deported. But the outcry belied the obvious: It was exceedingly predictable that the Madleen’s voyage would end this way. Israel was never going to allow the blockade around Gaza to be broken, and the activists onboard knew they would be detained, thus the pre-recorded “SOS” videos. The videos aren’t a worst-case scenario call for help. They are, if anything, the point of the whole performance.
Activism is inherently performative. A hunger strike, a march, a sit-in, an encampment; all are premised on visibility — creating a spectacle that will provoke emotional responses and change minds, thus prompting tangible political change. The most successful actions are often characterized by the most compelling performances.
Too bad for the activists of the Madleen: As far as meaningful political theater goes, their work isn’t great. There’s a difference between understanding that activism is a kind of art form — in which building a powerful narrative is key — and performative activism, which happens when the focus shifts from the desired political goals to the activists themselves.
The journey of the Madleen falls firmly in the second category.
Thunberg and her fellow humanitarian crew may have aimed to draw attention to the punishing Israeli blockade on Gaza, which has been in place since 2007, and the devastating decline of humanitarian conditions within the strip, where acute malnutrition is on the rise. But now their vanity — or bravery, depending on how you see it — has become the story, drawing attention away from the Palestinians who live in Gaza.
Compare that failure to another protest with a predictable outcome: The repeated protests of Standing Together, a joint Israeli and Palestinian political movement that has, since mid-May, repeatedly marched to the Gaza border carrying aid.
Once there, the protesters chant in Arabic through bullhorns about their desire to end the war. Each time, they are detained and beaten by the police. After one protest, Alon-Lee Green, one of the group’s co-directors, was placed under house arrest.
Despite the futility of their act — the aid they carry will never make it to Gaza, and they know it — there is a profound symbolism in the picture of Israelis, Jews and Arabs alike, risking their lives and professional futures to speak out against the war.
So why aren’t Al Jazeera and CNN flocking to the border fence to monitor their well-being? Why aren’t the same people who spoke out furiously about Thunberg’s “kidnapping” giving any attention to a protest with the same aims, coming from within Israel?
To be fair, the members of Standing Together are not world famous, like Thunberg. It is natural that she draws more attention — it’s why she chose to participate in the flotilla in the first place.
But beyond that truth, I think the difference in visibility between the two protests speaks to a problem plaguing the pro-Palestinian protest movement: It hasn’t been effective.
It has been nearly 20 months since the Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed; the Strip is largely unlivable; hostages are still rotting in tunnels; children are starving; and the goals for the war have grown increasingly nebulous. Despite the intensifying international protests and global outcry, the circumstances of the Palestinians and the Israeli hostages trapped in Gaza have only grown worse.
Given the Madleen’s inevitable failure to reach its stated destination one might wonder why it was attempted at all. Is the point to try and help Palestinians in Gaza? Or just to show the world that the movement to help them is still functioning — even if it’s not achieving anything?
The flotilla gave the international community the chance to feel useful to Palestinians in a moment where we are painfully not. It was a protest that centered international observers and the activists on the Madleen, not the suffering civilians this protest effort is advocating for.
People cared about the flotilla because it gave them a sense that they were doing something productive. They couldn’t personally bring aid to Gaza, but they could cheer for people who were trying.
That cheering doesn’t do anything for the people who actually need help. It just makes us feel better.
Yet when an awful reality is getting worse, and nothing is working, giving up isn’t an option either. That’s why I wish the Standing Together protests might get some of the same attention as the flotilla. Yes, they have an equally poor chance of directly helping Palestinians. But they are made up of people who are directly impacted by the war. They fail over and over to stop the violence, but they do not stop marching to the fence, chanting slogans for peace, and risking arrest. Their activism is not sexy, it is not on a boat, and it is not working. But at least it’s honest.
