Unconditional US support for Israel, as well as internal EU divisions, were harming efforts to curb Israeli aggression in Gaza, Europe's top diplomat has said.
"We are really trying to do what we can, but if America is supporting everything that the Israeli government is doing, then the leverage they have is there and the leverage we have is in another place, unfortunately," the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said in Brussels on Wednesday (3 September).
Speaking at a conference hosted by the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), a think-tank, she fought back against critics of EU inertia on Gaza.
"When it comes to Israel ... I've been very pushy," she said.
Kallas cited in her favour that she'd ordered a review of the EU-Israel association agreement, drafted sanctions options against Israel, and engineered an EU Commission proposal to freeze Israel's participation in Horizon Europe, a science-grant programme.
The review found Israel was violating the EU-Israel pact's human rights clause - with over 63,000 dead in Gaza, induced famine, and reports of Israeli snipers mutilating Palestinian children by shooting them in the testicles as they queued for aid.
But none of the sanctions went ahead, due to Czech, German, Hungarian, and Italian opposition.
"It's a very difficult question, because we are not united on this," Kallas said.
Some of the EU's fiercest critics on Israel come from the so called Global South countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
But Kallas called out South-East Asian states for their own inaction, recalling her recent meeting with the ASEAN club in Kuala Lumpur in July.
"They asked me this and I said: 'OK, put your money where your mouth is' ... I refuse to accept that Europe is inactive, it's not true, Europe is the most active on this file from all the actors in the world," she said on Wednesday.
The EU had paid €500m in humanitarian aid to Palestine and €1.6bn in backing for the Palestinian Authority in the past two years, while all 10 ASEAN countries put together had paid just €40m, she said.
"We're the ones pushing all the time, and, yes, I know it's not enough, I agree, that's why I have this frustration," she added, in the event's Q&A session.
Earlier in her EUISS speech, she had also said: "The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is a fundamental test of Europe's resolve to fight internationally for our values. And we are struggling".
"We have not been able to use our geopolitical power to change the course in Gaza because we do not have unity", she said.
Kallas spoke the same day as Chinese president Xi Jinpig hosted Russian president Vladimir Putin and over 20 other leaders of mostly authoritarian states in Beijing.
And EU disunity was also on show in China due to the Kremlin-friendly Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico's, decision to attend.
The EU is currently working on a 19th round of Russia sanctions.
But Fico told Putin on Tuesday: "We are extremely interested in standardisation of relations between the Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation".
Speaking to press after the Beijing summit on Wednesday, Putin ridiculed EU sanctions, but said his friendly ties with US president Donald Trump meant there was "light at the end of the tunnel" for a peace deal on the Ukraine war.
But Putin's talks with Trump have been seen in Europe as an attempt to buy time to avoid extra US sanctions, while continuing to attack Ukraine.
He showed more of the same tactics on Wednesday by keeping up airstrikes on Ukrainian civilians, while making an unrealistic offer to meet Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy - but only if Zelenskyy kowtowed to him by holding the meeting in Moscow.
And for her part, Kallas also issued a reality check to Trump on Putin.
Some international commentators have said Trump's overtures to Moscow were an attempt to divide Putin and Xi to stop the emergence of a Sino-Russian axis on the geopolitical stage.
But looking at the Beijing summit, Kallas said: "If the US thinks it's able to divide Russia from China: Not happening, not happening. This is definitely not going to happen".
"China provides Russia with 80 percent of their dual-use imports ... They are all used for military purposes. This allows the killing to continue in Ukraine," she also said in her speech.
And speaking at a meeting with Zelenskyy in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said Putin was a menace for the EU as well as Ukraine.
"We have said from the beginning of this war that you are not only fighting your own war, you are fighting for the entire future of Europe. And therefore we have to continue [our support]," she said.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.