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Red Flag: An angry young woman defies a naval blockade

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin praises Greta Thunberg and her “PR stunt”


13/06/2025

Greta Thunberg 2024

On Tuesday, an “angry young woman” got off a plane in Paris. That is how Donald Trump referred to Greta Thunberg. Always a match for misogynist bullies, the 22-year-old climate activist responded: “Well, I think the world needs a lot more young angry women, to be honest. Especially with everything going on right now.”

Thunberg and 11 other activists had been on the sailing ship Madleen, trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, when their ship was captured in international waters, some 200 kilometers from Gaza. They were taken to Israel against their will — and for good measure, they were charged with entering the country illegally! While Thunberg and three others were deported immediately, eight remain in custody.

Western media reported that the ship had been “captured” or “intercepted.” Yet when the Houthis do the same thing off the coast of Yemen, these same media talk about “piracy” or “terrorism.” As Thunberg put it in a video, this was an act of kidnapping in international waters. After 20 months of genocide, killing well over 60,000 people with complete impunity, Israel didn’t even feel compunction about snatching a French Palestinian member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry tried to make light of the “selfie yacht” — ignoring the fact that Israeli soldiers continue to post selfies and TikToks of themselves committing war crimes. Yet they immediately attempted their own PR stunt, filming themselves handing a pastrami sandwich to a vegan. This is not just deeply offensive (one recently released prisoner of Hamas reported that he was primarily able to keep kosher) but also a sign of the deep war psychosis in much of Israeli society, who apparently perceive the sandwich photo op as a PR win.

Absolutely Nothing

But even as they accused Thunberg of seeking attention for herself, she focused on Gaza. Asked about the conditions of her detention, she said they were “absolutely nothing compared to what people are going through in Palestine and especially Gaza right now.”

A reporter asked Thunberg why “so many countries’ governments around the world are just ignoring what is happening in Gaza.” She replied:

Because of racism. That’s the simple answer. Racism and basically desperately trying to defend a destructive, deadly system that systematically puts short-term economic profit and maximizes geopolitical power over the well-being of humans and the planet.

The Israeli government points out that the amount of aid on the ship was indeed “tiny.” But this is because a previous ship organized by the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was attacked by drones near Malta last month. Israel has blocked all supplies from Gaza since March 2, deliberately starving two million people while they are bombarded and concentrated. Actual humanitarian agencies are not allowed into the besieged territory. Instead, food is being sent in via U.S. mercenaries cynically calling themselves the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. At these so-called aid sites, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and wounded.

Both sides realized that if the ship had reached Gaza, the blockade would have been impossible to maintain. That’s why thousands are trying to break the siege by land right now.

The Connections

Just about the only supporters of Israeli piracy were the Trump Administration and especially German media, who denounced Thunberg’s “staged event.”

The liberal media loved the young activist just five years ago when she called for serious action against climate change — remember Person of the Year in 2019? However, these same elites felt betrayed when she started drawing connections, showing how environmental destruction is caused by capitalism. Since she began speaking up about the genocide in Gaza, liberals have viciously attacked her.

Thunberg speaks for a generation of people who are radicalizing. In the rebellion against Gestapo-style ICE raids in Los Angeles, young people are waving not only Mexican but also Palestinian flags. They realize that ICE and the IDF train together, two groups of armed thugs in defense of global capitalism.

Seven years ago, Thunberg launched a global youth movement called Fridays for Future. Some of its leading activists have launched lucrative careers as Green Party politicians and professional NGO “activists.” But many others are serious about saving the planet from climate apocalypse — and this means fighting against capitalism rather than trying to change it from the inside.

Just a few years ago, Thunberg approvingly quoted the idea that “Ending fossil capitalism doesn’t mean we have to implement socialism,” referring to the battle of systems as an “unimaginative 20th-century debate.” In the meantime, she has clearly realized that capitalism remains our main enemy in the 21st century, and a radical break with this system is necessary.

Israel has given yet another display of its depravity, mobilizing military forces to stop a young woman transporting rice, baby formula, and hygiene products to starving people. This is what it does to citizens of imperialist countries with the world watching — the brutality against poor people in Gaza defies the imagination. Thunberg will continue to be a face of youth radicalization, inspiring many more angry young women.

Red Flag is a weekly column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel Flakin has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

Declaration of Self-Indictment for Views Relevant to Secret Service Observation

Statement in solidarity with the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and Palestine Speaks and all BDS supporters


11/06/2025

The German government just released the Verfassungsschutzbericht 2024 (report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution) which contained the following passage:

“BDS-affiliated groups or groups that support the movement and its demands often took part in anti-Israel gatherings. They also intensified their demands for an end to the alleged ‘Israeli apartheid’ as well as their calls for a boycott of companies and goods related to Israel. Some of these groups are now assessed as confirmed extremist efforts. This is the result and conclusion of the previous examination of the BDS movement as a suspected case.

To be named here are ‘BDS-Berlin’ and ‘BDS-Bonn’ as well as the group ‘Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East e.V.’ (‘Jewish Voice’). Jewish Voice is a section of the federation European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP) and has existed in Germany since 2007…

The same applies to the group ‘Palestine Speaks’ which was founded in Berlin following the resolution ‘Resolutely confront the BDS movement––[to] fight antisemitism’ adopted by the German Bundestag on 17th May, 2019.”

In summary, the German state has declared that BDS groups, the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace and Palestine Speaks are now being considered as “confirmed extremist efforts.” As a response, an alliance calling itself “the people” issued the following statement.

source

Photo Gallery – That was Summer Camp 2025

Haus des Wandels Steinhöfel, 7th – 8th June 2025

Stop ReArm Europe campaign

An internationalist convergence


10/06/2025

On June 21st in The Hague the heads of government of the NATO countries will meet to decide in detail how much to spend on weapons production and with what money. 

The EU has already invited the states to “develop educational and awareness-raising programs, especially for young people, aimed at improving knowledge and facilitating debates on security, defence and the importance of the armed forces …”. The meeting most likely will set the tone for the Atlantic allies’ war mongering plans, specifically to reallocate these immense resources through draconian social budget cuts. 

On that same week and specifically on June 21st in all the capitals, networks of associations, committees, pacifist and political groups converge together to protest against it. The Stop Rearm EU European campaign will soon launch the dates of June 21st to the 29th as a week of agitation all over the continent. An international converging date is planned at The Hague on June 21st with a counter international forum.

Stop ReArm Europe is an international campaign started by various civil society and political groups which so far in Italy and Spain alone counts more than 600 associations, groups and political parties. Focused on anti militarism and the European commission politics of rearming and war, the campaign is autonomously organised in each city, place, country and it’s a great chance to converge under a main common issue.

The Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro Atlantic (DDA), conceived and implemented by the North American think tank The Heritage Foundation, serves as a guideline for the Nato allies’ capabilities to operate in peace, crisis and war. The relative peace dividend of the EU countries which went into social and civil infrastructure is down to about zero thanks to the U.S.A. and allies’ plans. “Confronting a deteriorating security environment” is the main propeller for such national, international and abroad plans. 

Such claims translate into locally locking into the discipline, the order, and the authority of the ruling classes over the rest of society. 

In the words of Simon Weil on deterrence: “What is defined as national security is a chimerical condition: in which a country would preserve the possibility of making war by denying it to all others” (Reflections On War, 1933-1943).

Authoritarianism and warmongering clearly go hand in hand, as we can see in Italy with the DL Sicurezza a securitarian law that heavily criminalises social conflict in any shape and form, and which just passed by a process of pre-imposed trusting votes by the government, while not been discussed at all in the parliament.

Similarly, we witness in Germany various dubious resolutions aimed at ethnically discriminating and repressing specific members of the population. The current chancellor is implementing the militarisation of the locomotive industry as for the Rheinmetall case. The remilitarisation of German society is felt in the abnormous violent repression against the peaceful pro Palestine movement as well as towards the dissent for the ruling class from the radical left. Meanwhile dissent expressed by the radical right and nazis is often left untouched.

In Italy and Spain, it is clear to the participants and supporters of the campaign that to be for peace is to be anti-militarist, anti-NATO, anti-fascist, anti-colonial, and anti-genocide. In the North of Europe especially in Germany these intersectional and internationalist issues don’t always go together.

The recently organised national dissent campaign No DL Sicurezza in Italy has brought together different generations and a variety of groups rarely seen in the last 5 years. Old school 70+ years old internationalists, whether feminists or autonomous insurgents, are sharing knowledge and organisational practices. 50+ years old people from the ‘no global’ movement at the turn of the millennia are sharing tactics with the 20+ and 30+ year olds of the XR and LGBT+ movements, supporting the 40+ years old workers of the GKN factory worker’s strike in Campo Bisenzio, and updating language and awareness with the massive NUDM transfeminist movement.

Berlin has an even richer chance to converge to include the many international struggles and experiences of the Palestinian, Kurdish and Syrian diaspora, the Arab Spring and Occupy assemblies of the 2010s, the recent and traditional Latin American grassroots movements, dissident Israelis, the former Yugoslavian Non Alignment heritage of the Balkans and so on.

Any form of fascism, capitalism and patriarchy supporting a genocide will generate more domination, violence, repression and censorship based politics everywhere, unless it is opposed, delegitimised and stopped. It is crucial to include the issues of freedom for Palestine, and the responsibilities for the genocide happening in Gaza, the wars in Sudan and in Congo, in the core of these bottom up European based movements to internationally organise and coordinate resistance based on anti militarisation, anti-fascism and freedom from war, exploitation and colonisation economies. 

Most importantly, we must remember that war itself is the exact opposite of solidarity, sustainability, equality and the growth of civil and social rights towards the commons, which define societies living in just peace and foster liberation for all.

Stop ReArm EU and the dates around June 21st are a great opportunity to organise and converge in Berlin to continue and expand the antimilitarist protests that started (again) with the Welfare not Weapons demo at Gesundbrunnen last May. 

17 June 1953: East German workers’ uprising

This week in working class history

On 16th June, 1953, building workers in East Berlin went on strike. The next day, more than a million people struck throughout East Germany, with demonstrations in 700 towns and cities. The initial demands were economic, but these were soon generalised, with demonstrators demanding free elections, the release of all political prisoners, and democratic trade unions. Soviet troops opened fire on protestors. 55 people were killed throughout East Germany and more than 15,000 arrested. 1,500 were given lengthy prison sentences.

In response to the Uprising, Communist poet/playwright Berthold Brecht, who was living in East Germany, wrote the sardonic poem The Solution, in which he asked: “Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?” He then hid the poem in a desk drawer and it was not published until 1959, 3 years after his death. Brecht supported the uprising but retained some loyalty to the East German régime. 

Western politicians used the uprising for Cold War propaganda – the street leading to Brandenburger Tor was renamed Straße des 17. Juni, and 17 June was declared a public holiday in West Germany. But some Western leaders were scared. US military officer Karl F Mautner recalls commandants saying: “Got to be careful that we don’t have a revolt spilling over into our part of the city.” This was, above all, a workers’ uprising against an authoritarian government and not an anti-Communist one.

The Uprising of 1953 was important as, at the height of the Cold War, it pointed a way towards a different sort of politics, of a fight not between West and East but between below and above – against rulers on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It was followed by uprisings in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1980, just as workers in the West fought their own rulers. This was our fight, and we should not let Western propagandists claim credit.