And they still can.
For over 20 months, European leaders have watched — and in many cases supported — the destruction of Gaza and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Despite mounting evidence and public outrage, the European Union and European governments have still failed to take meaningful action.
They have repeatedly attempted to make it appear as though it is a very difficult process.
But the truth is that it’s not and none of this had to happen.
According to several legal experts and former policymakers, the EU has had the direct tools at their disposal to stop the genocide throughout these 20 months. And they still do.
These tools include:
- Imposing immediate arms embargoes
- Freezing association agreements
- Imposing targeted sanctions on Israeli leaders and military officials
- Banning financial transactions with Israeli banks that finance settlement expansion
- Withdrawing ambassadors
- Suspending research and development cooperation
- And halting all trade in sectors such as military equipment and surveillance tech.
These aren’t extreme measures. Many of them were abruptly and immediately used against Russia within days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis put it bluntly in a recent interview with Nigerian broadcast journalist Ireti Bakare-Yusuf on her show Borderlines on Nigeria Info:
“Europe can stop the genocide in Palestine in 24 hours,” he said.
And the deeper we look into it, the more that statement rings true:
The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for over 30% of its imports and exports.
As a political entity it has substantial leverage — not just economically, but diplomatically and symbolically. Israel heavily relies on European technology, capital and political legitimacy.
Yet even as tens of thousands of children and civilians were being - and still are being - shot by drones, bombed in their homes and buried under rubble, the EU has kept their markets open, contracts continuing and diplomatic connections largely intact.
The recent rhetorical turnarounds have been just that: Rhetorical. Any real action still has yet to be taken.
International law is not ambiguous when it comes to genocide and genocidal intent. And the amount of proof that both are being carried out is staggering.
Under the Genocide Convention, to which all EU member states are signatories, states are obligated not just to refrain from committing genocide but to prevent it.
That obligation is triggered the moment a serious risk of genocide is identified — not after it's been physically carried out or legally proven. Which in this case - it also has.
A binding ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2024 ordered Israel to take immediate measures to prevent genocidal acts. The ruling also imposed obligations on other states to prevent genocide. Legal experts, including those at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), argued that European inaction could constitute a breach of the Genocide Convention.
Still, the EU has failed to apply any of the measures at its disposal. While individual member states like Spain and Ireland have taken symbolic steps that have come late and still remain to have any large scale effects, the EU as a whole has not imposed any sanctions on Israel, nor has it suspended the EU-Israel Association Agreement — despite repeated calls from their populations, organisations and the rest of civil society to do so.
Dutch media NRC recently published their investigation on the extensive research and interviews with leading international law and genocide experts to assess Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The result was unequivocal: What Israel is doing in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide.
The panel of experts concluded that several acts committed by the Israeli military — including mass killings of civilians, destruction of essential infrastructure, forced displacement, and obstruction of humanitarian aid — more than live up to the criteria under Article II of the Genocide Convention.
The findings were largely ignored at the EU level. No sanctions followed. No emergency meetings called. European Commission officials have yet to respond substantively to the report.
The Dutch investigation joins a growing body of documentation from leading human rights institutions.
In 2024, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese released a detailed report stating that the actions taken by Israel in Gaza show "a pattern that is consistent with genocidal intent and acts."
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also both issued independent investigations concluding that Israel is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and that the evidence meets the threshold for genocide under international law.
These conclusions are not isolated. They are build on months of documentation by the tireless documentation by Palestinian journalists, rescue workers and civilians on the ground in Gaza.
The mounting evidence includes statements by Israeli officials suggesting intent to forcibly destroy or displace the Palestinian population in Gaza, combined with the unprecedented scale and pattern of deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Despite all of this overwhelming documentation, the EU has taken no collective legal or political action in response.
In the eyes of both international lawyers and genocide experts, activists and general populations, the EU’s failure to act is not merely a political failure but a historic human neglect of duty.
Future courts, truth commissions and UN inquiries will examine not only Israel’s actions but also the complicity of foreign governments who had the capacity to stop the mass killing— and didn’t.
The contrast between public response and institutional paralysis has been extreme.
In cities across Europe — from Berlin and Madrid to Copenhagen and Brussels — millions of people have protested. Enormous marches, student occupations, port blockades and grassroots campaigns have made it clear that a large segment of the European public does not support what is happening in Gaza.
Yet, inside the EU institutions, no decisive collective action has been taken to reflect that sentiment or uphold the European Parliament's stated commitment to international law, human rights and the prevention of genocide.
The tools are all there - and they have been there the whole time.
The political responsibility, integrity and courage has not.
And with every day that passes, European leaders' inaction becomes increasingly impossible for more and more of their populations to ever forgive or forget.
The time where performative rhetoric is believed has long passed. Only clear direct action remains.
