Greta, it’s really something to see you on that ship right now. Can you tell us why you’re taking this journey, extremely dangerous, and how you’re planning to challenge the Israeli blockade?
GRETA THUNBERG: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, as you said, we are doing this mission following one month after our last attempt. Boat Conscience was bombed and disabled. So, that’s why we are trying again, because we cannot afford to give up. There is simply too much at stake. And in times of injustice, as we are seeing now the genocide and blockade happening, we have to do everything we can to demand an end to these atrocities and war crimes committed by Israel.
And for me personally, I happen to have a platform for some reason, and then it is my moral obligation to use that platform. And if my presence on this boat can make a difference, if that can show in any way that the world has not forgotten about Palestine, and to try once again to attempt to break the siege and open up a humanitarian corridor and deliver the extremely needed humanitarian aid, then that is a risk I am willing to take.
And it’s something that we just simply have to do. We cannot just sit, sit around and do nothing and watch this like live-streamed genocide unfold in front of our very eyes. So we are doing this because we are human beings who care about justice. And when our complicit governments fail to step up, it falls on us, unfortunately, to do so.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Greta, could you talk about how you see the issue of Palestinian freedom connecting to or intersecting with the issue that you’re best known for, which is climate change activism?
GRETA THUNBERG: Yeah. For me, there is no way of distinguishing the two. We cannot have climate justice without social justice. The reason why I am a climate activist is not because I want to protect trees. I’m a climate activist because I care about human and planetary well-being, and those are extremely interlinked. For example, when we see the genocide in Gaza, of course, there are some very obvious links, that ecocide, environmental destruction is a very common method used in war and to oppress people.