Israel is losing friends in Europe who fear its war in Gaza will diminish their own credibility in the region as international outrage mounts.
Europe has long seen itself as a neutral voice in the Middle East, but as Israel ramps up attacks on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, sympathies are increasingly turning against the Israeli government, with some EU member states calling for sanctions.
On Monday EU foreign ministers discussed the bloc’s responsibility to enforce an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order for Israel to halt operations in Rafah, suggesting that to do otherwise would undermine its credibility.
The meeting in Brussels came hours after a strike on a camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah that killed at least 45 people.
The EU policy chief, Josep Borrell, lambasted Israel for continuing its Rafah operations. “I condemn this in the strongest terms,” he said, adding: “These attacks must stop immediately.”
Meanwhile Spain, Ireland and Norway have officially recognised the state of Palestine, joining nine EU members who have already done so, with more suggesting they will follow.
The shift is mainly due to what is seen as Israel’s overreaction to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, according to James Moran, a former EU ambassador in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen.
“Israel is losing its friends in Europe,” he told i. “There is a move away from relatively unconditional support of Israel’s right to defend itself, as it’s played out in Gaza over the last few months.
“And I think you’ve seen a shift overall in Europe … towards emphasising the need for long-term peace…”
Mr Moran said the decision by more countries to recognise Palestinian statehood was indicative of the general mood.
“It also reflects what’s been going on in the streets. In Europe, as indeed in the UK and elsewhere people have been horrified by what’s happening in Gaza,” he said.
“This conflict gets under the skin of Europe, including the UK. In a way, we’re like no other, partly because of the Jewish and Muslim communities that we have here, but also the clear injustice, which is, I think, become extremely evident by what’s been going on in Gaza these last few months.”
This week there have also been serious discussions over imposing sanctions on Israel. “For the first time at an EU meeting, in a real way, I’ve seen significant discussion on sanctions,” the Irish foreign minister, Micheál Martin, said, suggesting Dublin would back it. “Certainly, if compliance with Friday’s ICJ ruling isn’t forthcoming, then we have to consider all options,” he said.
While Germany and Austria are expected to block sanctions, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the ICJ ruling was “binding and must be complied with”.
Sven Biscop, a director at Egmont, Belgium’s Royal Institute for International Relations, said the EU’s recent actions had hurt its reputation in the region, despite its history of sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
“There is a very strong history of the EU making sure that the Palestinian side gets heard,” he said. “The EU – and the EEC, before it – has played a pivotal role going back to the 1970s, of having the Palestinians recognised first of all as interlocutors, and then having their demand for a state recognised.
“But even though there was this strong position on theoretically in favour to state solution, they could never agree to take much action towards that purpose because some member states refused to take any sanctions against Israel, i.e. Germany, and a few others.
“And some European leaders have lost a lot of credit in the region by giving impression that we’re sort of exclusively on the side of Israel.”
He added that Israel had “clearly made a conscious choice to create as much collateral damage as possible – and that is totally counterproductive”.