If Europe was not so in hock to Washington, it would sanction Israel over Gaza and condemn its unilateral attack on Iran
T
he rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy. Europe most urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East.
Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump’s obscene plans for a Gaza “riviera” and “humanitarian” initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course.
France and Saudi Arabia had planned a conference on the two-state solution, which might have led to Paris’s recognition of Palestinian statehood. More significantly, the EU had accepted a review of the EU-Israel association agreement, which, in light of Israel’s war crimes, should lead to the suspension of EU preferential trade with Tel Aviv, but now may not.
