EU states do not need ‘consensus’ to hold Israel accountable

On July 13, European Union overseas ministers are owed to conscionable again astatine the Foreign Affairs Council successful Brussels. The docket includes an “exchange of views connected Gaza and the West Bank” and is expected to screen colony trade, the EU-Israel Association Agreement, imaginable sanctions connected Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and proposals to restrict, alternatively than ban, goods from amerciable Israeli settlements.

If erstwhile efforts are immoderate guide, the July gathering volition travel a acquainted pattern: Hesitation, euphemism and nary meaningful enactment to clasp Israel accountable. The stated obstacle volition apt beryllium a “lack of consensus”. In practice, that operation has go the bloc’s preferred mode of masking corporate inaction.

Germany and Italy, backed by respective Eastern European states, person repeatedly blocked meaningful enactment successful effect to Israel’s violations. Other subordinate states, meanwhile, person remained mostly paralysed, shifting work betwixt nationalist governments and EU institutions alternatively of taking decisive steps.

Yet the EU and its subordinate states proceed to invoke the connection of planetary instrumentality portion refusing to use it erstwhile Israel is concerned. The spread betwixt rule and practice, betwixt rhetoric and action, is nary longer a diplomatic inconsistency. It has go policy.

That is becoming harder to warrant and harder to hide.

According to reports connected a leaked 2017 ineligible memo, the EU had already been advised that it had ineligible grounds to suspend the Association Agreement, the governmental and commercialized model governing the bloc’s relations with Israel. Another probe has shown that Israel has damaged oregon destroyed much than 150 cardinal euros ($172m) successful EU-funded infrastructure successful Gaza and the West Bank without accountability, portion colony goods proceed to participate European markets nether misleading labels. At the aforesaid time, United Nations and quality rights bodies person continued to papers sedate violations, including a June 2026 study by a UN quality rights assemblage that described the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children successful Palestine arsenic amounting to genocide, alongside crimes against humanity and warfare crimes.

The caller occurrence involving EU overseas argumentation main Kaja Kallas exposed however acold the EU has submitted to Israeli pressure. Reports that she compared Israeli practices to apartheid successful a closed gathering triggered a furious effect from Israeli officials, with Israel’s overseas curate saying helium was severing each interaction with her until she retracted the remarks. The European Commission’s effect was to nonstop different commissioner to Israel to reassure officials that relations would stay intact.

That is the existent connection from Brussels: Preserving ties with Israel matters much than interior solidarity, self-respect, oregon the EU’s stated committedness to planetary instrumentality and its ain values.

Pressure astatine the EU level is essential, and exposing the complicity of EU institutions and leaders indispensable stay a priority. But accountability cannot extremity there.

Member states, particularly those that assertion to uphold Palestinian rights and planetary law, indispensable besides beryllium held liable for their ongoing complicity.

The International Court of Justice was wide successful July 2024: Israel’s concern of Palestinian territory is unlawful. It violates the Palestinian close to self-determination and indispensable end. Settlement enactment indispensable halt immediately, and Israel’s policies breach the planetary prohibition connected radical segregation and apartheid.

The tribunal did not halt astatine Israel. It ruled that each state, not conscionable Israel, is legally bound not to recognise the concern arsenic lawful, not to assistance oregon assistance successful sustaining it, and to cooperate to bring it to an end.

EU subordinate states bash not lone person a ineligible work to act. They besides person tools astatine their disposal that bash not necessitate EU-wide consensus.

Member states tin suspend bilateral cooperation, including visa facilitation and taste oregon technological exchanges; use nationalist export-control regimes to artifact arms, subject instrumentality and dual-use transfers to Israel; and follow nationalist measures to prohibition commercialized with amerciable settlements. They whitethorn besides enforce targeted sanctions, including question bans and plus freezes, against individuals implicated successful superior violations of planetary law.

They tin property the EU to activate the Blocking Statute against US sanctions targeting those pursuing accountability astatine the ICC, portion ensuring continued backing for Palestinian civilian society. They tin prosecute accountability done home courts, enactment the enforcement of ICC apprehension warrants, and lend to the implementation of ICJ rulings and advisory opinions. They tin besides formally intervene successful South Africa’s genocide lawsuit earlier the International Court of Justice.

The EU and its subordinate states person spent 2 and a fractional years uncovering reasons not to act. The July Council should exposure that world plainly, particularly with Ireland holding the rotating presidency from July 1 to December 31, 2026 and having the organization powerfulness to construe its words into action.

The contented is nary longer whether the bloc has the ineligible tools. It does. The question is whether subordinate states volition support outsourcing work to Brussels oregon yet enactment wrong their ain powers.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.