Next, the bloc needs to stand up for international law and to support international legal efforts to address the conflict.
The EU and its members face third-party obligations with respect to the International Court of Justice’s consecutive orders from January, March and May 2024 on the situation in Gaza and to prevent genocide — a call Europe must heed by fully cooperating with war-crimes investigations. Given the appallingly high number of women and children killed in the conflict, European countries should also immediately stop their arms exports to Israel.
Additionally, as members of the International Criminal Court, European countries are obliged to enforce its arrest warrants. Hungary’s refusal to detain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a recent visit was a glaring breach. Europe must make clear that international law is not optional — even when inconvenient.
Then there’s the economic leverage Europe has at its disposal. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner but has never used that to enforce the human-rights clause in its EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Nor has it effectively ensured that no benefits from this partnership, directly or indirectly, extend to Israel’s illegal settlements where more than 750,000 settlers now live — something that could entail barring products from those settlements and penalizing companies that aid in the occupation. And if Israel continues to flout international law, suspending the agreement should be considered.
Likewise, EU aid to the Palestinian Authority should be conditional on governance reforms, democratic legitimacy and unifying Palestinian leadership to lay the groundwork for a future Palestinian state comprising both Gaza and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
