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ISRAEL/ WEST BANK & GAZA
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell recently told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel’s right to defend itself had a limit. He also decried the “catastrophic level of killing, destruction and starvation” that Israel has caused in the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, Politico added.
That’s quite a turnaround for the EU official and other leaders in Europe who echo him these days. After Oct. 7, European leaders moved to ban peace rallies or pro-Palestinian protests, often violently, cracked down on student sit-ins and even barred Palestinian speakers at academic conferences in an attempt to show unwavering support for Israel.
But over the past six months, that has changed. Now, Borrell’s comments reflect how many Europeans are growing increasingly frantic and even angry over Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.
“Israel’s ties with the EU are under unprecedented stress at this point in time,” Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank, told CNN.
Many German leaders don’t share Borrell’s views – or at least not publicly. Many, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, view their pro-Israeli stance as the bedrock of their country’s foreign policy and their sacred duty due to their genocidal history during World War II, World Politics Review explained. Still, even that resolve is cracking as polls show that the German public is almost evenly split in its support of Israeli operations in Gaza.
Meanwhile, many Germans are upset by International Court of Justice (ICJ) decisions this year that have found fault with Israel’s policies before and after Oct. 7. And they were shocked by Nicaragua’s request to the ICJ to order Berlin to stop supplying weapons to Israel that were reputedly enabling the alleged genocide in Gaza.
“The war in Gaza brings two pillars of German identity into contradiction: the pillar of ‘never again’ and the historical responsibility to Israel, and the pillar of international law and human rights,” German Institute for International and Security Affairs expert Peter Lintl told the Economist.
Israel has killed more than 42,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials, while crippling the tiny region’s infrastructure, setting the stage for a humanitarian crisis that will last for years. On Friday, United Nations officials warned that the situation in the northern Gaza Strip is “apocalyptic”. “The entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” said the heads of UN agencies, including UNICEF and the World Food Programme.
In response, European leaders have called for an end to weapons exports to Israel, condemned Israeli for banning the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for allegedly aiding and abetting Hamas, and criticized Israeli forces for firing on European soldiers deployed as UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. As CNN reported, French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, said Netanyahu “must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN.”
The EU has also increased sanctions on settlers and is considering targeting more Israeli officials.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris even called for the EU to reconsider its trade deals with Israel, noted the Jewish News Service, even as EU officials have resisted efforts to ban Israeli products in European shops.
Meanwhile, protests erupted in European cities such as Stockholm, Amsterdam and Vienna over the weekend, with demonstrators voicing outrage against Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
More than a year after war broke out in Gaza, this time European officials did nothing to stop them.
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