36 MEPs demand end of Israel trade agreement now to stop the Gaza genocide

Images keep appearing, each reaching new heights of horror. Reports from the UN, independent experts, and NGOs are piling up, all unanimous. Statements from Israeli officials leave no doubts regarding their intentions.

Since World War II, no genocide has been so well-documented, yet so long ignored by Western powers.

It took a year-and-a-half of war crimes being committed, 52,928 people being killed, including 15,613 children, 119,846 people being injured, including 34,173 children, and 470,000 people facing famine, for EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas to finally announce that the European Union will review its association agreement with the state of Israel.

Finally. This agreement is supposed to “be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

The review launched by the European Union must lead to its denunciation, as provided in its Article 82.

If “starvation as a weapon of war, the possibility of genocide in Gaza and an apartheid system in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem”, the “systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities” of Palestinians in Gaza, are not enough to denounce the agreement, what will it take for Europeans to act? To wait until all Palestinians in Gaza have starved to death?

The Israeli economy heavily depends on Europe, its main trading partner, with which it conducts a third of its trade.

The State of Israel is also the main third-state recipient of European Union research programmes.

Denouncing the agreement is a decisive step in confronting the far-right Israeli government.

But this step, alone, will not be enough to alter the course of the Israeli authorities. Sanctions must be immediately taken by the European Union against all Israeli actors involved in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and in the illegal occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It is now up to Ursula von der Leyen and Kallas to act. They must urgently propose to the Council the adoption of sanctions and the denunciation of the association agreement between the European Union and the State of Israel.

For too long, Europeans have remained silent on the multiple violations of international law committed by Israeli authorities. If they persist in condemning without acting accordingly, then the European Union will forever be complicit in the ongoing genocide, and the ideals that presided over its birth will have died in Palestine.

This op-ed was updated at 1430 with the addition of one extra signatory.

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