Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
On
June 9, 2025, Israeli naval forces intercepted the Madleen,
a rusty, overhyped, and under-provisioned “aid boat” that sailed with great
drama from Europe to Gaza. Onboard: Greta Thunberg, a few other professional
protesters, and a pathetic 100 kilograms of flour.
To put that in perspective: Israel facilitates hundreds of aid trucks to Gaza every single day,
carrying hundreds of tons
of food, medicine, diapers, and fuel. Greta brought enough flour to feed roughly 330 people for one day—assuming Hamas or
hungry mobs don’t steal it first, which is precisely what happened to UN flour shipments this
week.
In exchange for this performative voyage, Greta got what she came for: selfies, headlines, and a chance to pretend she was the moral conscience of the world. But what she didn’t expect was Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz offering her and her selfie-yacht companions a front-row seat to truth.
The Film They Refused to Watch
Israel prepared a 47-minute documentary, “Bearing Witness to the October 7 Massacre,” which compiles footage directly from Hamas bodycams and GoPro devices worn during the pogrom. The footage is unsparing: rape, torture, execution, mutilation. It’s not Israel’s word against Hamas—it’s Hamas filming its own barbarism, proud, gleeful, laughing as they slit throats and shoot children point-blank.
Greta and gang were invited to watch. According to multiple media accounts, they agreed to begin, then either shut their eyes or turned away, refusing to take in more than a few seconds. Maybe they knew what they would see. Maybe they were afraid they’d lose the ability to justify their moral theater.
Maybe they already had seen it—and simply didn’t care.
Historical Precedents: Can Footage Change Minds?
Israel’s tactic wasn’t new.
There’s a long history of using atrocity footage to rip the
mask off sanitized evil:
·
Nuremberg Trials (1945): The Allies
didn’t just charge Nazis—they made the court and the world watch
what they found in the camps. British and American
cameramen documented the piles of corpses, gas chambers, and starved survivors.
The footage stunned even hardened prosecutors. German
civilians were marched into local theaters and made to watch. Some
fainted. Others wept. A few denied. But the films worked: they shattered any
lingering doubt—at least for a time.
·
Vietnam (1972): The iconic photo of “Napalm
Girl,” 9-year-old Kim Phuc screaming, her skin burned off, turned American
public opinion decisively against the war. One picture—raw, ugly,
undeniable—shifted the moral calculus more than a thousand op-eds could ever
have done.
·
Rwanda (1994): In contrast, during the Rwandan
genocide, footage was deliberately
suppressed. The Clinton White House wouldn’t call it genocide,
and CNN didn’t show rivers filled with hacked bodies. Result? Nothing was done. No outrage, no pressure, no
intervention. Without images, there was no movement.
·
Israel, 2023–24: The IDF’s October 7 footage has
been shown to journalists, diplomats, foreign correspondents, and lawmakers. At
a screening in Los Angeles,
attendees were reportedly shaken.
Some demanded to see more—beheadings,
rapes—in order to confront the full horror. A separate screening
for foreign journalists in Israel left
many stunned. And at Harvard, a screening organized by Chabad with support from
Bill Ackman reportedly prompted
some students to reconsider their assumptions.
But no screening has been more
visceral than the one held for members of the Israeli
Knesset.
On November 6, 2023, over 100 MKs
watched a version of the October 7 footage at the Knesset. What followed was
human, gut-wrenching, and painfully real: some
parliamentarians burst into tears. Others vomited. Several ran from the room.
The footage, reported by the Jerusalem Post, was described as
“unbearable.” Likud MK Galit Distel sobbed and shouted, “Where is the world?”
Another member said, “I have no more tears left to cry.”
A short video clip from the screening shows elected officials weeping uncontrollably and being comforted by colleagues as they fled the hall.
This is how decent people react when confronted with evil. With
horror. With grief. With rage.
Now compare that to Greta Thunberg
and the Madleen crew, who closed their eyes and turned their
heads when given the opportunity to bear witness. These are the same people who
flew across continents to play martyr in Gaza. Who accuse Israel of genocide
while refusing to look Hamas genocide in the face. They couldn’t handle 47
minutes of footage—but they feel qualified to comment on 75 years of Jewish
history.
There’s a word for that. But let’s
just call it what it is: moral
cowardice.
One Boat Does Not a Flotilla Make
The Madleen
carried no aid worth mentioning, no moral compass worth respecting, and no
courage whatsoever. It was a stunt—and everyone knows it. Everyone on that boat
knew that Israel would be polite and diplomatic, and that they were completely
safe at all times, free to watch or not watch the footage as they pleased, and
offered sandwiches, bottles of water, and a free flight back to Europe, where
they belong.
All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over. pic.twitter.com/tLZZYcspJO
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 9, 2025
Israel should be commended for showing restraint—because really, Greta Thunberg’s face begs to be slapped. But no. Israel did nothing of the sort.
Greta: People were not treated well
— The Uri (@uricohenisrael) June 10, 2025
Journalist: Can you elaborate?
Greta: mmm.. Dehumanizing, They didn’t let me say goodbye
Journalist: Can you give an example, tell us what happened to you when you arrived to the port? Were they violent?
Greta: mm I prefer not to mm yea
🤡 pic.twitter.com/EVqLymChHk
Fifteen years ago, during the Mavi Marmara incident, things got violent. This time? No shots. No injuries. The IDF simply rerouted the Madleen’s symbolic “aid,” through proper humanitarian channels, handed the activists sandwiches, and gave them a chance to learn something.
They
declined.
Greta had a moment—a chance to really bear witness.
She
blinked.
Then she shut her eyes.
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