“Legislation is interpreted for mates and utilized to enemies,” Italian statesman Giovanni Giolitti as soon as stated.
There are few higher examples of this than the best way the European Union bends over backwards to keep away from addressing Israel’s extreme breaches of worldwide regulation and the phrases of its affiliation settlement with the bloc.
On Might 20, the EU’s Overseas Affairs Council (FAC) voted to conduct a assessment of whether or not Israel was denying Palestinians’ human rights by stopping humanitarian help from coming into Gaza.
A month later, the identical physique concluded: “There are indications that Israel could be in breach of its human rights obligations underneath Article 2 of the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement.” Indications …
On June 26, EU heads of presidency at a European Council assembly concluded that they “famous” these indications and invited the FAC to “proceed discussions” in July.
It’s comprehensible that some initially welcomed the vote to assessment the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement again in Might. It’s only human to carry on to something that provides hope that motion will lastly be taken to guard the human rights of the Palestinian individuals.
Sadly, the whole “debate” over the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement is solely a sham. It doesn’t characterize critical motion on by the EU to deal with the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza and elsewhere within the occupied Palestinian territory. It deflects rising criticism by giving the impression that the EU might lastly be considering of doing one thing. Extra importantly, it distracts from the obligations which the EU and its members are legally certain to fulfil.
Human rights pretences
Twenty months into Israel’s devastating warfare in Gaza, Israel’s breaches of human rights and worldwide regulation are so in depth that there will be little question about their relevance to the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement.
They’re so quite a few that they have to be organised into classes to seize the depth and breadth of destruction wrought onto each facet of life in Gaza.
Israel has been accused of deliberately creating circumstances calculated to destroy the likelihood for Palestinian life within the Strip, which quantities to genocide. This consists of domicide and the laying to waste of Gaza’s city panorama; medicide – systematically dismantling the healthcare system; scholasticide – destroying faculties, universities and libraries; ecocide – wiping out Gaza’s agriculture and nature; econocide – the devastation of Gaza’s economic system; and unchilding – making childhood inconceivable.
Greater than 90 % of Gaza’s inhabitants, or 1.9 million individuals, have been displaced, and prior to now three months alone, over 600,000 individuals have been displaced once more, as many as 10 occasions or extra. A full blockade was imposed by the Israelis since March 2, and meagre help deliveries had been reinstated solely in late Might. Famine is widespread; 66 youngsters have died of hunger, and greater than 5,000 had been hospitalised with acute malnutrition in Might alone.
Underneath strain from European public opinion, which is more and more rejecting European help for Israel, the EU lastly determined to do one thing. However that one thing concerned a good bit of speaking and – up to now – no motion.
The bloc determined to vote on reviewing the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement. However this was nothing out of the odd as a result of all affiliation agreements needs to be topic to common critiques, which might set off both advances or scaling again the depth and breadth of relations.
In truth, those that known as for the vote knew very properly that suspension of the settlement requires a unanimous vote by 27 member states, which is at present inconceivable. European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen and member states, similar to Germany, Italy and Hungary, have made crystal clear their unwavering help for Israel. In these circumstances, hoping for a unanimous vote to droop the settlement is near delusional. A certified majority vote would possibly droop elements of the settlement on commerce, however that’s the most one can hope for.
That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Union’s dedication to human rights and “basic values”. As a substitute, public invocations by governments and officers of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Affiliation Settlement, which states that every one areas coated by the settlement itself “shall be based mostly on respect for human rights”, are not more than empty rhetoric.
In actuality, the EU by no means supposed for these human rights conditionalities to be taken severely. It’s simple to see why; it by no means specified by what standards human rights needs to be assessed, and it selected to not make these assessments routine, obligatory, and public.
On this method, the EU leaves itself sufficient house to assert it values “human rights and basic values” whereas, in truth, “decoding away” its personal guidelines to keep away from having to take any important motion.
Empty rhetoric
Some European states have determined to take particular person motion, however what they’ve carried out has been simply as meaningless because the EU settlement assessment.
The United Kingdom suspended commerce talks with Israel, however not commerce. Its latest communique alongside France and Canada was trumpeted as “harder” than the EU’s statements. But, the communique opposes solely Israel’s “growth of army operations in Gaza”: It takes difficulty solely with the extension and intensification of Israel’s assault, not with the devastation wrought upon the Strip up to now.
Nor does it point out the warfare crimes Israel has been accused of, or declare a dedication to uphold the Worldwide Legal Courtroom’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
In truth, regardless of the UK summoning Israel’s ambassador after its “powerful” joint assertion with France and Canada, it continued its surveillance flights over or near Gaza’s airspace, that are suspected of gathering intelligence for the Israeli military.
France, for its half, declared it might recognise a Palestinian state in June. June got here and went with out recognition.
In October 2023, Spain claimed that it stopped promoting weapons to Israel. In Might, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared, “We don’t do enterprise with a genocidal state.” And but, a Barcelona-based suppose tank revealed not too long ago the existence of greater than 40 contracts between Spanish state establishments and Israeli defence corporations.
Germany, France, the UK and Italy additionally proceed to provide weapons in breach of the spirit of worldwide regulation.
Authorized obligations
If European governments had been critical about responding to Israel’s crimes, they might do this by merely abiding by their authorized obligations underneath the assorted EU treaties and worldwide regulation.
The EU Constitution of Elementary Rights and the Lisbon Treaty require the bloc to embed respect for “democracy, human rights and basic values” into all EU insurance policies. That is why all affiliation agreements have human rights conditionalities within the first place.
The Genocide Conference imposes a preventive obligation to make use of “all means fairly out there” to forestall genocide. Already in January 2024, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) accepted that Palestinians’ proper to be protected against genocide could also be being violated.
The actions EU states can take embrace, however are usually not restricted to: halting arms contracts with the Israeli authorities and Israeli corporations; suspending intelligence cooperation; and slicing industrial, cultural and analysis exchanges with and funding for Israeli personal and public establishments on occupied Palestinian land. They need to additionally help the rigorous software of worldwide regulation, together with backing the case in opposition to Israel on the ICJ and imposing arrest warrants issued by the ICC.
Presently, the EU is in flagrant violation of its authorized duties and its personal guidelines. That may be a direct consequence of many years of ignoring gross abuses by Israel and different related states, together with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.
No quantity of “decoding” regulation or hiding behind process can masks the truth that the EU is in flagrant violation of its authorized obligations and the spirit of its personal guidelines. It has a monitor file of ignoring continued human rights abuses in related states, together with Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan. This monitor file has reached an ignominious peak since October 2023.
Inaction on Gaza reveals the bounds of Europe’s dedication to its self-proclaimed values: by sacrificing Palestine, Europe betrays itself.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
