European governments are finally
being forced to condemn Israel as its crimes have become impossible to
ignore. But they are scapegoating National Security Minister Itamar
Ben-Gvir rather than confronting the system he represents.
By Qassam Muaddi, Mondoweiss, May 30, 2026
Gathering in support of Israel in front of theAC European Parliament in
Brussels in the wake of the October 7 attacks, October 11, 2023.
(Photo: European Parliament Flickr Account. Creative Commons License
CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2023 – Source: EP)
The brutal treatment of activists aboard
the Global Sumud Flotilla for Gaza by Israeli forces during their
detention in international waters last week triggered a wave of
international condemnation, including from many European and other
Western countries.
Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Spain, Poland, and Greece summoned Israeli ambassadors or envoys to
condemn the treatment of activists detained during the interception of
the Global Sumud Flotilla. The UK said it was “appalled” by the images
of the activists’ detentions. These reactions, however, centered around
one figure: Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who
had posted a video of himself overseeing and encouraging the
mistreatment of the activists.
The focus on Ben-Gvir was so singular that France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, included in his condemnation post on X a claim that other Israeli officials had rejected Ben-Gvir’s actions.
That much is true: across the Israeli political spectrum, Ben-Gvir became the convenient scapegoat
to draw attention away from the entirety of Israeli politics, which
differs very little from Ben-Gvir when it comes to the treatment of
Palestinians. But the outrage in Israel wasn’t at the treatment itself,
but rather the fact that Ben-Gvir revealed it to the world, causing an
international embarrassment. The difference is that Ben-Gvir doesn’t
care about the PR problem he’s created, while other Israeli officials
do.
So do European politicians. That is why EU
governments, in being forced to condemn Israeli conduct, have taken
great pains to direct their opprobrium at a specific part of the Israeli
system, rather than the system itself. They have repeatedly deployed
this tactic in recent weeks, which appears to have become a common
doctrine for responding to Israeli violations when they become
impossible to ignore.
Two weeks ago, the European Union greenlit the sanctioning
of Israeli groups and individuals implicated in settler violence
against Palestinians in the West Bank. The decision, which followed
years of failed attempts, sanctioned only five groups and four
individuals, despite the fact that the settler movement in the West
Bank, including its most violent factions, is part of official state
policy, openly sponsored by ministers with public budgets.
Another example is when several European
countries issued a joint statement last week condemning the ongoing
expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The statement, signed
by France, the UK, Italy, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
Norway, and the Netherlands, characterized settlement expansion as
“illegal” and called on Israel to halt it. It then added that the
signatories “opposed” those who call for the annexation of the West
Bank, including members of the Israeli government. The statement
stressed the signatories’ commitment to the two-state solution.
The statement made no mention of the fact
that in the past two years, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills with an
overwhelming majority, one in 2024 rejecting a Palestinian state, and one in 2025 allowing the government to annex the West Bank.
A new-old pattern
This increasingly repeated pattern of
individualizing Israeli policies when condemning them contrasts with the
older pattern of either ignoring Israeli practices or outright
justifying them as “self-defense.” But is this a new paradigm in Western
politics, and will it lead to a larger change of policy toward Israel?
According to Roula Shadid, co-director of
the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), “part of the
change in Western discourse towards Israel is the global mobilization in
solidarity with Palestinians since October 2023.” Shadid points to a
gap between the official discourse of Western governments and the
awareness expressed by solidarity movements, noting that “when we talk
with diplomats and political actors, they admit that Israeli policies
are more structural than they admit publicly, but they have political
reasons to maintain their criticism of Israel under a certain ceiling.”
For Shadid, the fragmenting of Israeli
policies, pinning them on individual ministers or settler actors, is a
reflection of how Israel has fragmented Palestinian reality on the
ground. “Israel has imposed a different set of conditions for
Palestinians in Gaza from those in Jerusalem or in the West Bank, and
Palestinian leadership is also fragmented, which makes room for Western
actors to treat different issues separately,” Shadid told Mondoweiss,
adding that this forecloses any treatment of Israeli policies as one
coherent whole.
In Europe, particularly, governments have
for many years invested in the political paradigm created by the Middle
East peace process, according to Shadid. “Countries invested politically
and financially in the two-state solution project, which in essence is
the administration of occupation, and this makes them insist on clinging
to the narrative that there is a peace process underway that needs to
be saved from a few extremists,” she explained.
Shadid considers that limited
condemnations of parts of the Israeli system give Western countries “the
ability to continue business as usual with Israel, while containing the
increasing demands and legal obligations to dissociate from violations
of Palestinian rights.” She also thinks this policy is short-lived.
“Western governments might hope this
moment passes, and then recycle their image and go back to business as
usual,” she said. “There will be obstacles, because Israel will increase
its aggression, its regional wars will continue to expose its colonial
project further, and awareness will continue to rise globally about this
reality, and so will pressure coming from citizens.”
(Photo credit: Eliza Gkritsi)
(Photo credit: WAFA)
