EU states do not need ‘consensus’ to hold Israel accountable

As foreign ministers meet on Gaza and the West Bank, national governments cannot hide behind EU paralysis.Published On 10 Jul 2026On July 13, European Union foreign ministers are due to meet again at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels. The agenda includes an “exchange of views on Gaza and the West Bank” and is expected to cover settlement trade, the Israel-association-agreement" class="entity-link entity-event" data-entity-id="117095" data-entity-type="event">EU-Israel Association Agreement, possible sanctions on Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and proposals to restrict, rather than ban, goods from illegal Israeli settlements.If previous efforts are any guide, the July meeting will follow a familiar pattern: Hesitation, euphemism and no meaningful action to hold Israel accountable. The stated obstacle will likely be a “lack of consensus”. In practice, that phrase has become the bloc’s preferred way of masking collective inaction.Germany and Italy, backed by several Eastern European states, have repeatedly blocked meaningful action in response to Israel’s violations. Other member states, meanwhile, have remained largely paralysed, shifting responsibility between national governments and EU institutions instead of taking decisive steps.Yet the EU and its member states continue to invoke the language of international law while refusing to apply it when Israel is concerned. The gap between principle and practice, between rhetoric and action, is no longer a diplomatic inconsistency. It has become policy.That is becoming harder to justify and harder to hide.According to reports on a leaked 2017 legal memo, the EU had already been advised that it had legal grounds to suspend the Association Agreement, the political and trade framework governing the bloc’s relations with Israel. Another investigation has shown that Israel has damaged or destroyed more than 150 million euros ($172m) in EU-funded infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank without accountability, while settlement goods continue to enter European markets under misleading labels. At the same time, United Nations and human rights bodies have continued to document grave violations, including a June 2026 report by a UN human rights body that described the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in Palestine as amounting to genocide, alongside crimes against humanity and war crimes.