Opposition to Israel’s Strategy in Gaza Growing in Europe

Given the dire situation of the entire civilian population in Gaza, three European countries, Spain, Ireland and Norway, announced last week they would recognize the State of Palestine as of May 28, insisting on the need to negotiate a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike. On the same day, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced the recall of Israel’s ambassadors to all three countries for “consultations”.

Israel’s reaction was denounced by none other than Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, in an interview with Spanish public television: “Every time someone takes the decision to support Palestinian state-building, something that everyone in Europe supports, Israel’s reaction is to turn it into an anti-Semitic attack”, he said. Concerning the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, whom Prime Minister Netanyahu accused of being anti-semitic (cf. above), Borrell called the charge unacceptable: “I ask everyone, starting with the Israeli government, but also certain European governments, not to intimidate the judges, not to threaten them.”

At the European Commission itself, in a letter titled “Not in Our Name” sent May 24 to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and others, over 200 EU staff members warn that the EU’s “continued apathy to the plight of Palestinians” runs the risk of “normalising the rise of a world order where it is the sheer use of force” that lays down the law. The letter urges the EU to officially demand an immediate and lasting ceasefire, and halt EU member states’ arms exports to Israel, whether directly and indirectly.

In Germany as well, different tones are beginning to be heard. At the “Democracy Festival“ in Berlin May 26, Economics Minister Robert Habeck said: “Of course Israel must abide by international law. It is indeed the case that Israel has crossed borders there, and it must not do so… And the famine, the suffering of the Palestinian population and the attacks in the Gaza Strip are – as we can now see in court – incompatible with international law.” Several days before, Chancellor Scholz had warned Israel against a military attack on Rafah, which would trigger a geopolitical disaster in the region and “end badly”.

The two court cases at the ICC and ICJ have thus had an impact on the government in Berlin. And they have also fueled the protest actions at the universities, in spite of the repressive administrative decisions and heavy-handed police interventions. In Berlin, students were publicly supported by more than 100 professors and even the President of Humboldt University, who defended the protest encampment. In Munich, the local court overturned a decision to ban a protest encampment at the university, while the court in Potsdam had ruled on May 16 that the decision to deny entry at the Berlin airport to renowned British-Palestinian medical expert Ghassan Abu Sitta, several weeks ago, was illegal. Sitta, who was invited to a congress on Gaza, was forced to fly back to London.