There’s a word for the EU’s inaction over Gaza: racism | Shada Islam

THe president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and his team faced growing criticism from the controversial EU-US tariff agreement agreed in July. I hope for calls similar to responsibility for the complicity of the EU in the current genocide of Israel in Gaza. Such a calculation has been expected for a long time.

I have been looking in despair for almost two years because European governments have done little or nothing while Israel devastated Gaza through attacks, targeted strikes and forced famine after the October 7 attack in Hamas. There are so many sanctions available to the EU that they always refuse to deploy; So many levers they refuse to shoot. The Bloc is the largest trading partner in Israel, representing 32% of Israel’s total trade in 2024. However, at each meeting, EU leaders and foreign ministers have failed to obtain the majority necessary to suspend the agreement of the EU-Israel Association. This despite the pressure of Spain, Ireland and Slovenia, and despite the fact that the EU’s own experts in human rights have indicated that Israel is in violation of human rights obligations in the agreement.

Even a modest commission proposal to suspend Israel in part of the 95 billion euros in the EU Europe research program – an initiative that the former head of the foreign policy of the EU, Josep Borrell, described as a “bad joke”, given the scale of the atrocities of Israel – remains blocked by Germany and Italy. Israeli exports to the EU in fact increased in early 2024. The German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, says that Berlin is now stopping the exports of military equipment to Israel which could be used in Gaza. But that follows almost two years of relentless military support: the arms export licenses from Germany alone amounted to 485 million euros in equipment in the 19 months after October 7.

I understand the historical guilt of Europe, internal divisions and deep economic ties with Israel. But it is impossible to ignore a more uncomfortable truth: the political and moral paralysis of Europe on Gaza is intimately linked to racism and structural violence that so many blacks, brown and Muslims are confronted every day. It is clear to me that attitudes towards Gaza are shaped by a sustainable colonial mentality which is anchored in foreign, commercial and migratory policies of the EU. The same dehumanizing logic applied to racialized Europeans and refugees from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is now with a view to abandoning the EU of the Palestinian people.

Europe and external biases from Europe feed and support each other. This connection is not abstract. It is clearly visible in the disparity of the treatment of Ukraine and Gaza. The illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia was rightly condemned by the EU, which imposed severe and unprecedented sanctions in Moscow, gave kyiv more money and have repeatedly sentenced other states that have not followed suit. Palestinian life, however, is treated as a consumable, their suffering is minimized while children are deprived of their childhood. Suffering in Gaza, presented as a humanitarian crisis rather than a deliberate political choice, is decontextualized, depoliticized and disinfected. EU political decision-makers should listen to when the Palestinian-American Academic Rashid Rashid Khalidi says that this conflict is “the last colonial war in the modern era”.

The moral calculation on the inaction of the EU on Gaza cannot be partial or fragmentary. He must include recognition of the way in which the past and the present of Europe intersect, not only with regard to Palestine, but in many of its actions on the world scene. An EU who considers himself a defender of international law and world justice should be willing to have these difficult conversations – in fact, she should encourage them. But EU’s policy circles largely Eurocentric see a conversation such as division.

Without a serious self-examination and long-awaited action, long-visible EU’s double standard will continue to undermine its democracy in the country and its credibility abroad.

An update of the 2020 anti-racism action plan could provide a way to follow. But for this to happen, the measures to fight against the current alarming state of discrimination on the EU scale must be supported by reflections in clear eyes on the history of Europe. This is also late. The action plan has lost momentum and a recent bureaucratic reshuffle has sidelined Michaela Moua, the first anti-racism coordinator of the EU, in what many fear still undergo the equality agenda in the years to come.

However, public pressure and dissent within EU institutions, including senior officials, increase. Von der Leyen, who was criticized for his unwavering pro-Israeli bias, spoke out against plans for an Israeli occupation of Gaza City. It is far from enough. Critics of the EU position are right to denounce its double standards, its betrayal of international law and the erodation of its own credibility. The plans of Israel to occupy the Gaza set must be arrested, food must be brought urgently and there must be an immediate cease-fire.

Any serious calculation on the inaction of the EU in Gaza will remain incomplete without confronting structural racism and persistent colonial hierarchies which always shape the vision of the world of Europe. Gaza has removed pretension. EU political decision -makers must finally face these harsh truths, and act to dismantle them.

• Shada Islam is a commentator based in Brussels on EU affairs. She directs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advice company