Will the EU walk the talk and really suspend dialogue with Israel?

In his country, he is nicknamed “the ram of Brussels”. The image sticks rather well to the Spanish diplomat. Josep Borrell, whose mandate as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is coming to an end, is attempting one last coup in the cozy corridors of the European capital.

This November 18, he hopes to place on the agenda of the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven a proposal to suspend political dialogue with Israel. A way of confronting the continent’s heads of diplomacy with their responsibilities, more than a year after the start of the destructive war in Gaza, which left more than 43,000 dead and 102,000 injured.

Supporter of the two-state solution and the unity of the Palestinians, the diplomat, from the socialist ranks, defended courageous positions on this issue, which had earned him to be called anti-Semitic by Israel Katz, the Israeli minister of Foreign Affairs. However, these accusations are difficult to accept when we know his background: the manager lived for a season in a kibbutz, where he met his first wife.

The Union sharply divided on the issue

To provoke discussion among Foreign Ministers, Josep Borrell relies on the legal provisions of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which requires respect for human rights and democratic principles. A principle which has already pushed the left and NGOs to request the suspension of the agreement which includes research, study and commercial exchange programs. The suspension of the dialogue as proposed by Josep Borrell would not, however, mean the suspension of the association agreement.

At the end of May, Josep Borrell estimated that he already had “the necessary unanimity of states to convene an association council with Israel to discuss the situation in Gaza, the respect for human rights that Israel must assume under the association agreement and how it plans to respect the decision of the International Court of Justice”.

For the moment, the EU remains sharply divided between unwavering supporters of Israel, such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria, and more critical member states, such as Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia which recognized the Palestinian state this year.

The latter had formulated a ten-point plan for peace earlier this year and urged respect for the request of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister, his defense minister and two Hamas officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the same time, at the University of Valladolid, Josep Borrell explained that Hamas had been “funded by the Israeli government in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Fatah Authority”. The angry truths of the “Brussels ram”.