Why 7 October is our collective failure

7 October was one of the worst days of my life. When it happened, I was at Emmanuel Macron's annual party conference as his parliamentary group’s Middle East adviser. 

I quickly realised I had a friend among the families of the hostages.

Udi Goren and I had been exchanging messages for years as he wanted to visit Egypt. My family had long been involved in the peace process since the 1990s.

On 7 October, Tal Haimi, Udi's cousin, was killed and his body is withheld by Hamas to this day. For two months, his pregnant wife and two kids believed and hoped that he had been captured alive, until the terrible news of his death came. Udi had the courage to keep campaigning for the remaining hostages still, urging the Israeli government to return to negotiations for a ceasefire and a deal. 

Nothing, however, came out in this direction from Benjamin Netanyahu.

When I drafted the European Parliament's resolution on the aftermath of the 7 October attacks with MEPs, we had to meet with Israel's ambassador at his urgent request.

I seized the opportunity to tell the ambassador that the families of the hostages were desperate for a ceasefire to negotiate their release, that most did not understand the logic behind the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians to achieve this goal. 

"We do not represent the families of the hostages. We represent the State of Israel," the ambassador coldly replied, only to then continue — complaining that our resolution supported international law and the work of the International Criminal Court to prosecute war criminals on all sides. 

I remember exchanging afterwards with Udi and we agreed that the wrong people were getting too much airtime. The governing Israeli far-right could not care less about his message to "bring them home." 

However, to my surprise even a majority of MEPs naively sided with Israel's far-right.

For four months, the EU could not bring itself to call for a ceasefire and negotiations. Neither could a majority in the European Parliament, despite the fact half of the hostages had been successfully released, precisely after a week of negotiations thanks to a ceasefire in November 2023. 

Netanyahu's calculation

Netanyahu selfishly broke the talks to avoid a likely prison sentence for corruption.

He could either reach a political solution with Hamas to free all remaining hostages, then his far-right allies would withdraw from the coalition and he would lose his immunity in court. Or he could continue to destroy Gaza as such, to please his political allies and stay in power. He chose the latter.

Shockingly, even in January 2024 as I was back from Rafah's crossing and negotiating the parliament's second resolution on Gaza, many of what I could call moderate MEPs voted against a ceasefire regardless of the hostages' appeals. 

How much did Europe actually care about 7 October?

Sure, planes and specialised medical teams were sent to Israel to help treat the thousands of wounded and repatriate some EU citizens. Hours of vague speeches and minutes of silence for the victims were held, to which I proudly took part.

Yet I felt deeply betrayed, terrified even, by Europe's amateurism. 

7 October saw the murder in cold blood of 800 civilians in Israel, including 36 children, by Hamas and other militant groups, on top of almost 400 members of Israel's security forces. 

The EU rightfully condemned this horrendous massacre in the strongest terms, but carefully avoided the hard truths that it had happened precisely because the peace process had been so marginalised and the occupation so normalised — with our complicity.

True friends speak the truth to one another

When in 1988 Palestine's Yasser Arafat recognised Israel, renounced armed resistance and conceded to abandon much of historical Palestine, Israel was supposed to withdraw from the remaining occupied territories.

My family proudly co-founded Seeds of Peace in 1993 with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Arafat and Bill Clinton because we believed in the Oslo process. 

However, shortly after the assassination of Rabin by a far-right Israeli, a narrowly-elected Netanyahu started derailing the peace process in 1996.

He resumed the construction of illegal settlements and stopped military withdrawals. As Palestinian hopes for peace were dwindling, support for Hamas grew steadily.

The EU itself recognised Hamas had won in the ballot box in universities, unions, local and even legislative elections in 2006. 

As Israel's nationalists went back to square one with the occupation, so did Hamas with armed resistance.

Yet the EU was foolish enough to reverse its policy of constructive engagement and instead follow Israel's nationalists. They expected Hamas to first recognize Israel, renounce to armed resistance and commit to Oslo, regardless of the fact that Israel had not.

The EU foolishly ignored Hamas's readiness to cease its attacks if serious peace negotiations resumed. 

We fell into the Israeli illusion that it could live in security and continue to flout international law and Palestinians' equal right to security. Netanyahu and his allies kept weakening the Palestinian Authority and funding Hamas ostensibly, while the EU gave market access to Israeli settlements, went almost silent on Israel's Gaza siege and its apartheid in the West Bank. 

Why did the EU — especially the governments that claim to support Israel's long term interests — not listen to Palestinian and Israeli peace activists? Why do a number of EU member states, like Germany, continue to arm Israel and to block meaningful sanctions? 

Part of the reason lies in a paper that was released last week by German and international Middle East experts, which I have endorsed: it is high time for a reset of Germany's Staatsraison doctrine of unconditional support to Israel.

I am angry today, like all of my friends from Israel and occupied Palestine, because we, progressive voices, have been disregarded by most regional actors, including many EU member states, while countless innocent lives have been lost in Israel and occupied Palestine. 

If we want to show respect to the victims of 7 October and say 'never again' once and for all, we must learn our lessons and confront Netanyahu’s destructive legacy.

The EU must isolate the Israeli government until a permanent ceasefire and a political solution is found to end Israel's occupation of the State of Palestine.

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