European expressions of concern over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have hardened into outright condemnation, but the article says the angry words and exhortations have achieved nothing. That is the central fact of the moment: the bloc’s institutions have spent months performing outrage while Netanyahu and his ministers keep moving, apparently unmoved by the polite theater from Brussels.
Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Ignored
Last September, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed horror and outrage at aid restrictions that she said created a “man-made famine” in Gaza. Brussels has inveighed against settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank, which undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Responding to the bombing of Lebanon following the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Israel’s right to self-defence does not justify this destruction.”
Those statements are the public face of European concern, but the article makes clear that the face has not changed the machinery underneath. Mr Netanyahu and his ministers have generally treated European critics with barely concealed contempt, presumably reassured by the fact that their chief allies in the White House tend to behave in exactly the same fashion. The hierarchy is plain enough: the people under bombardment and restriction get the consequences, while the powerful trade statements and alliances like poker chips.
The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and the academic benefits it confers through Israeli participation in the Horizon research programme are considerable. Yet internal disunity, and an overoptimistic faith in the power of persuasion, have led to a reluctance by the bloc to use those relationships as leverage. So the institutions that could apply pressure have instead settled for moral language and managed disappointment. The result is a familiar one: condemnation without consequence.
What Leverage Looks Like When It’s Finally Mentioned
Belatedly, there are indications that a change in approach may be coming. The recent election humiliation for Hungary’s outgoing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was also a bad result for Mr Netanyahu, who lost an invaluable far-right ally. In February, Hungary was the only EU country to vote against the adoption of sanctions against violent settlers in the West Bank, blocking a measure requiring unanimity. Once Mr Orbán’s successor is in office, it is expected that the proposal will come back to the table.
That detail matters because it shows how even the most basic institutional action can be held hostage by one government inside the bloc. The EU’s own procedures become a bottleneck, and the people affected by settler violence and land grabs are left waiting for unanimity, weighted majorities, and the next round of elite rearrangements.
More broadly, Spain is formally calling for the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel, which gives preferential status to economic and commercial relations, on the grounds of human rights violations. Such a measure would fail to win unanimous support from key countries including Germany. But a partial suspension affecting the trade parts of the agreement – previously advocated by Ms von der Leyen in September – would require only a weighted majority in favour. That may also prove unachievable, as was the case last autumn.
The Apparatus and Its Limits
Last week, following angry exchanges between Tel Aviv and Rome over civilian deaths in Lebanon, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, announced that the renewal of a defence cooperation agreement with Israel would be suspended “in view of the current situation”. Ms Meloni, like Mr Orbán, could once be considered a close political ally. The shift is presented as a sign that the mood is changing in European corridors of power, but it is still a corridor conversation, not a break with the system that keeps the relationships in place.
As the geopolitical consequences of the spectacularly reckless and illegal US-Israel war on Iran destabilise their economies, European governments can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines and talk to Mr Netanyahu’s hand. That a third of Israel’s trade is done with the EU gives the latter significant cards to play. So too the cultural and academic ties forged on a premise of shared values. Yet Brussels has repeatedly seen its views brushed aside as, with the help of Donald Trump, Israel’s prime minister pursues a maximalist regional agenda that manifestly has no place for a two-state solution.
The article’s facts show a familiar pattern of institutional power: Europe condemns, Europe delays, Europe calculates leverage, and Europe hesitates. The people in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are the ones living with the consequences while the bosses of diplomacy debate whether the time has finally come to use the tools they already have. If the wind is now changing in European corridors of power, it is not before time.