Original article (in Albanian) was published on 08/10/2025; Author: Patris Pustina
A bizarre post circulating on Albanian-language conspiracy networks claims that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is “a globalist tool used as bait” directed by a “seven-member organizing group that manages the exposure of all these people in an inhumane way worldwide,” allegedly called SMUD. The post further asserts that the name of the Sumud Fleet, which attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in July 2025, is derived from this name.
As is often the case with such extraordinary claims, no evidence is provided.
However, using Google Lens, Faktoje discovered that the people in the photo, the seven members of the supposed “evil organization”, are in fact the board of directors of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), a community-owned electric utility serving Sacramento County in the USA.
According to the SMUD website, “each director represents a different geographic area or ‘neighborhood.’ During their four-year term, their role is to set policies and values for how we serve the community and to determine the long-term direction SMUD will take moving forward.”
Neither SMUD, a publicly-owned energy utility, nor its board of directors, which rotates every four years, has any connection to Greta Thunberg, the Sumud Fleet, or any “organizing group” allegedly controlling them.
The Sumud Fleet, in fact, did not take its name from Sacramento’s public electric company, but from the Arabic word sumud, meaning “steadfastness” or “resilience.”
Sumud is a cultural value, an ideological concept, and a Palestinian political strategy that emerged among Palestinians after the Six-Day War in 1967, in response to oppression and the resistance it inspired.
