From heroine to “supporter of terrorism”… Why did the Western media turn against Greta Thunberg? | policy

With the outbreak of the Gaza War in October 2023, Thunberg – 22 years old – expressed her support for the Palestinians who are facing the worst forms of genocide at the hands of the Israeli occupation.

The episode (10/20/2025) of the “Observatory” program monitored Western double standards in the concepts of freedom, justice, and human rights, by monitoring the story of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

But this humanitarian stance was enough to turn her image in the Western media upside down, as she turned from a “voice of environmental justice” to a “symbol of extremism” in the headlines of newspapers and major channels.

Prominent media outlets such as Fox News, Sky News, and German Welt, along with a number of Swedish newspapers, launched a systematic smear campaign against her, accusing her of hiding behind environmental slogans to justify her support for “terrorism,” as those outlets described it.

With the Swedish activist joining the Freedom Flotilla campaigns last June, which aimed to break the siege on Gaza and bring aid to them, the intensity of the media attacks and smear campaigns carried out by the Western media increased.

A media campaign was launched using terms and epithets describing Thunberg as a “supporter of terrorism,” even accusing her of “cooperating with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Lebanese Hezbollah.”

Sarcasm and accusations

But the media smear campaigns did not deter Thunberg from her courageous stances, as she once again participated in the “Global Resilience Fleet” that sailed last October, which included more than 40 ships, and hundreds of activists from different countries of the world participated in the fleet.

After the Israeli Navy intercepted the fleet in international waters and detained the participants, Thunberg revealed that she was subjected to torture and humiliation by the occupation soldiers, as she was forced – according to her testimony – to crawl and kiss the Israeli occupation flag.

Despite the gravity of what was exposed to it, most Western media ignored these violations, and the ridicule even reached entertainment programs, while Israeli newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post continued to accuse them of “anti-Semitism.”

One of the most prominent people who mocked her was US President Donald Trump, who described Thunberg in one of his statements as a “problem maker who needs to manage her anger” and not really concerned about environmental or other problems.

Days after Thunberg’s release, the war on Gaza stopped. Although her trip with the Al-Samoud fleet crew, which took weeks at sea, failed to achieve her short goal of breaking the siege on Gaza, her larger goal of stopping the war was achieved.

Thunberg was known in 2018 for her bold stances after she defended the issue of climate change, even though she was only 15 years old at the time.

The story of the young Swedish activist has now transformed from a “symbol of environmental justice” and a heroine celebrated by the Western media for her support of environmental issues, to a young woman facing all charges of terrorism because she supports a just humanitarian cause in which she wins for a people who were completely annihilated over the course of two years in front of the world.