Daniel LEVY

Political commentator and president of the US/Middle East Project (USMEP)

In the same short period that Spain and Belgium were tightening arms embargoes against Israel, Germany was finalising close to a billion euros in new Heron drone contracts with Israel Aerospace Industries, and Greece was midway through a multi-billion military modernisation programme leaning heavily on Israeli weapons systems. There is no better demonstration of the schizophrenia that currently characterises European policy toward Israel.

Europe can attempt to split the difference, but a choice will eventually have to be made: will a state that has systematically violated international law, defied ICJ rulings and claimed a unique exemption from accountability continue to be normalised and integrated into a flailing European project that contributes to the further dismantling of an international architecture of law? Or will Europe, rooted in its interests, be a central player in building and shaping a multilateral architecture for a new multipolar order that is based on a normative international law framework? 

Europe’s attempt to assert itself as an upholder of international law after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was precipitously undermined by its failure to uphold a similar standard on Gaza. At the time, some argued that the loss of the Global South was not particularly consequential and that Europe was anyway too divided. Even as protests against European policy toward Israeli crimes proliferated in many capitals, and as the credibility of national and pan-European structures was increasingly undermined due to this double standard, the consequences appeared manageable to leaders across the continent.

But the costs of indulging Israeli impunity have grown exponentially. It led to Israel dragging the US into a war with Iran, which has now affected every European economy, including a surge in oil and gas prices, stagflation and the very real threat of further economic collapse. Israel is pursuing a strategy of making itself the dominant hard power in Europe’s southern neighbourhood in the Eastern Mediterranean, and it is trying to pull Europe into that structure of domination. It is an ambitious project and almost certainly one of overreach that cannot be achieved or sustained. It is also premised on abandoning  any international law-based approach to human rights and global equity. Those are the stakes of the choice Europe faces.

Europe has significant potential leverage. But when it comes to the three Ts – trade, tourism and tournaments – very little has changed. Europe remains Israel’s largest trading partner,  a quarter of Israel’s foreign financial assets are held in European banks. Israelis travel to Europe visa-free – including, as things stand, individuals being able to enter Europe without having to sign a declaration form or waiver regarding their non-participation in war crimes and/or incitement to genocide. And instead of imposing costs for Israel’s permanent occupation and expansionism, their continued acceptance in European competitions from Eurovision to UEFA signals a sense of normalcy for Israel. At most, European policy has nibbled at the furthest edges of impacting that. Rather than suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, or parts thereof, as called for by a European citizen’s petition with one million signatures, and banning all arms trade, the EU’s most recent action was merely to sanction three Israeli settler individuals and four Israeli settler organisations. Just to be clear: there is no occupation or settlements distinct from the entire Israeli state and its military.

What Israel envisions is a new regional architecture of which Europe is a part. In fact, Europe’s south-east Mediterranean member states are being very openly recruited as an extension of a Greater Israel regional hegemony project. Greece and Cyprus have actively deepened their relationships with Israel in ways that lock their defence and energy futures into Israeli-led frameworks. Athens is procuring Israeli missile defence systems – Barak MX, David’s Sling and Spyder – and, in 2026 alone, signed a €650 million deal with the Israeli military technology company and defence contractor Elbit Systems. The flagship symbol of this convergence is the €2.5 billion Great Sea Interconnector, a submarine electricity cable linking Israel, Cyprus and Greece, alongside the stalled but politically central EastMed gas pipeline. Once the contracts are signed, the cables are laid, and this dependency on Israeli infrastructure is built into its own grid, the exit becomes more onerous and unlikely. More emphasis, anyway, should be placed on clean energy, renewables and self-sufficiency.

Along with India, states in the Gulf (led by the UAE), the Horn of Africa and North Africa, this makes up what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling a putative future ‘hexagon of alliances’ – a blueprint for a hard-power regional hegemony that is designed as much to foreclose accountability as anything else. It is a strategy unlikely to be realised, but possibly enough to wrong-foot Europe’s choices.

Europe’s historic rearmament drive raises questions of great consequence: part of a much bigger turf war within the EU between the option to achieve maximum strategic autonomy – a ‘Buy European’ approach – versus one that remains firmly locked-in to an American-led procurement framework. The latter option means doubling down on a dependent relation with the US, even as President Donald Trump consistently works to undermine NATO. Israel will be touting its tried-and-tested weapons systems (tried-and-tested on Palestinians that is, mostly civilians and in ways that violate international law). 

Europe has alternatives. That does not mean abandoning relations with the US, but it does mean nurturing strategic autonomy, and it certainly means avoiding dependence on Israel (and, in effect, ‘made in Israel’ is a variant of ‘made in Washington’). The consequences of the ill-conceived war of choice against Iran are only just beginning to play out, but one already sees a trend within the West Asia/North Africa region to build alliances that can begin to deter and contain the destabilising and radicalising influence of the Greater Israel domination project. For instance, the increased frequency of meetings and cooperation among a quad consisting of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan.

These diverging paths map onto a starker choice. It was partly summed up in the offer made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference in February this year, inviting Europe to join America in renewing Western domination – a kind of colonialism 2.0, racist and out of sync with today’s geopolitical realities. But this American offer is no more than a mirage: Trump clearly holds Europe in contempt, and is busy courting China even as he threatens Europe for attempting the same.

The alternative is for Europe to rise to the moment and best pursue its own interests by being a central pillar in a global architecture of an international law-based order for the 21st century. Chief among those would be the protection of global commons and the prevention of collapse on a colossal scale. That in part requires an end to the exceptionalism accorded to Israel, to desist from sacrificing international law on the altar of Israeli impunity (something for which Europe’s citizens are now paying a direct cost, notably in this Iran war).

Europe cannot achieve that if its rearmament and energy strategy are tethered to a Greater Israel project of exceptionalism. It will not be good enough for Europe to suffice with rhetorical condemnations of Israel’s illegal actions. Instead, Europe must align itself in its arms, trade and bilateral relations with the July 2024 ruling of the International Court of Justice – declaring Israel’s occupation unlawful – implement the responsibilities of non-criminality incumbent on all third-party states, and, in so doing, to demonstrate independence and leadership.

Photo credits: Shutterstock/Alexandros Michailidis