Environmentalists hate Western civilisation, so they hate the achievements of Jews

During an interview I once called Greta Thunberg the Meghan Markle of environmentalism, meaning that, like the Duchess of Sussex, the Swedish activist’s media appearances are negatively correlated with her popularity. I think that this relationship has intensified over the last couple of weeks in which Ms Thunberg decided to become an active supporter of Hamas, accusing Israel of “occupation” and “genocide.” These claims are obvious nonsense, and once Israel has finished its operations in the Gaza strip, there will still be millions of Palestinians around – the only population in the world, by the way, that is simultaneously the victim of an alleged genocide but also growing in number. It is like the wrong claim that Gaza is the world’s most densely populated area with 5,479 people per square kilometre. That is about the same population density as in the city of London (5,596 people per square kilometre) and less than the district in Vienna where this column is currently written (5,722 people per square kilometre). 

Some are befuddled as to the evolution of Ms Thunberg from climate activist to Israel hater, but this is in fact entirely logical. For the most part, the environmental movement has never been about the environment as much as it has been an expression of civilisational (especially Western) self-hate. As energy issues specialist Emmet Penney has written, “the post war American environmental movement began as an outgrowth from the eugenics movement […] Its boosters included historic figures like Theodore Roosevelt and lesser-knowns like Madison Grant, whose bestselling book The Passing of the Great Race was referred to by Hitler as his ‘Bible,’ and Henry Fairfield Osborn, then president of the Natural History Museum.”

If the Nazis were obsessed with the “Jewish question” than the environmentalists are obsessed with the “human question” and both groups are propagating a dramatic reduction of the object of their obsession. Human flourishing and ingenuity are viewed as a threat, since it would allow more of our species to survive and thrive, something environmentalism and its sister-discipline, the degrowth movement, cannot abide. 

The Jews play a specific role in this worldview, because they are a demonstration of some of the best qualities Western civilization has to offer. Whatever one thinks of domestic politics, the achievements of the people of Israel are remarkable. Within two generations of its founding, Israel has become both a high-tech and start-up nation that punches significantly above its weight when it comes to the economy and the innovative prowess of its companies.

Israel also managed to have the world’s only working form of Socialism (the Kibbutz) simultaneously to exist with free market capitalism. Israel shows that even in the most hostile environment Western ideas provide the basis on which to create a flourishing society. Not surprisingly, this is a direct provocation for Thunberg and her ilk. After successfully pushing the foolish elite of Western politicians into economic suicide via “green” policies she is moving on to the next target. First, she sided with economy-destroying environmentalism and now with civilisation-destroying Islamism. Remember the whole business of trying to destroy artistic landmarks to create attention for climate change? Well, climate change is out, but the methods remain the same. Now its not tomato soup on paintings because of global warming, but because of Israel’s “genocide” in the Middle East. 

Almost every ideology that is popular with the Left has an anti-civilisational tinge to it, because at the core of modern Leftism is an obsessive self-hatred of one’s own civilisation. From Ta-Nehisi Coates to Ibram X Kendi to Robert Habeck, they worship even the most mediocre intellect as long as it contributes to the destruction of Western Civilisation. These individuals as well as Greta Thunberg have never contributed any deep thought of consequence, and their trade is cashing in on the pervasive guild complex that has infected so much of our civilisation. “How dare you” is the accusation that replaces every argument and is designed to silence any opposition.

It is tragic that so many fell for it: Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many others stood in line to be flagellated by someone who has not proposed any solutions except returning the world to pre-industrial times. 

There have been numerous studies supposedly showing that those on the left-liberal side of the ideological divide are more open to new experiences, which is interpreted as proof of their open mindedness compared to those reactionary right-wing conservatives. But I do not believe that this interpretation is correct. Openness to something new can also be an indicator of a rejection of something old or traditional. The question then is, how many of those on the Left like new things not because of their novelty, but simply because they are a way of rejecting the traditional?

For example, being open to the possibility of six dozen genders and an equal number of new forms of cohabitation seems to be a example of open mindedness, but a closer look reveals all to often that it is more an attack on the traditional concepts of two genders and marriage than an actual preference for something new. It is a means to an end, the end being the destruction of what has been before.

If Western civilization has been built on the Judeo-Christian version of marriage being a union between a man and a woman, this has to be replaced by something new that is non-Western. There is a reason why contemporary left-wing feminists are suspiciously silent on everything from polygamy to child marriage to clitorectomies, even if they are happening ever more regularly in the migrant communities of Western countries. There is no resistance to these developments because contemporary Western Feminism has been entirely captured by the same civilisational self-loathing that also dominates the environmental movement.

The suffragettes of the 19th century were staunch patriots, which is why they demanded political rights in the first place: to contribute to the country they treasured. That spirit is long gone and has been replaced by the destructive forces of oikophobia. The universalisms of the 21st century only have one universal thing in common, which is the rejection of everything Western civilisation stands for. Hatred of Israel is just another expression of this, and it does not matter if this hatred is disguised as Islamism or environmentalism.