European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell rings a small bell to open an informal meeting of foreign ministers from the 27-nation bloc in Brussels on August 29, 2024.

 (Photo: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)

EU's Top Diplomat Seeks Sanctions on Israeli Leaders for 'Incitement to Commit War Crimes'

While welcoming the move, one Amnesty International campaigner asserted that "the E.U.'s call for a cease-fire and curbing settler violence rings hollow until it takes concrete action."

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that he has recommended sanctioning Israeli leaders for hate speech and inciting war crimes in Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank.

Borrell said during a meeting of E.U. foreign ministers in Brussels that he has asked member states if they support imposing sanctions on some Israeli Cabinet ministers who have disseminated "unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians" and have proposed "things that clearly go against international law" and amount to "an incitement to war crimes."

At least one E.U. member said it supports Borrell's recommendation.

"This is a war against Palestinians, not just against Hamas. The level of civilian casualties and dead is unconscionable," Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said Thursday in Brussels. "It's a war on the population. No point in trying to fudge this."

"It cannot be business as usual," Martin added. "It is very clear to us that international humanitarian law has been broken."

Earlier this year, the Irish Senate voted to impose sanctions on Israel, prohibit the transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel via Ireland, and push for an international arms embargo against the country.

While E.U. nations such as Ireland, Spain, Norway, and Slovenia have been outspoken critics of Israel's Gaza onslaught and have responded with moves including recognizing Palestinian statehood, other members of the bloc—notably Germany and France—have been staunch supporters of Israel, even as its forces have killed and wounded more than 144,000 Gazans and displaced, starved, or sickened millions more.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has threatened "severe consequences" for European nations that recognize Palestinian statehood.

Like the United States—Israel's biggest international backer—the E.U. has imposed sanctions on a handful of far-right Israeli individuals and groups, including extremist settler colonists who incited deadly West Bank pogroms and an organization whose members have blocked humanitarian aid shipments from entering Gaza.

While Borrell did not publicly identify specific Israeli ministers he believes should be sanctioned, he has recently condemned the words and actions of far-right figures including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Ben-Gvir was widely condemned for defending Israeli soldiers accused of gang-raping a Palestinian man detained at the notorious Sde Teiman prison and for taking part in a highly controversial visit to Islam's third-holiest site, the al-Aqsa mosque compound—which is located on what Jews call the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site. Ben-Gvir infuriated Muslims and other critics by declaring he wanted to "put an Israeli flag" and build a synagogue there.

Smotrich, who has also defended the alleged Sde Teiman rapists as "heroic warriors," has drawn condemnation for promoting new and expanded Israeli settler colonies in the West Bank, a policy he attributed partly to increasing international recognition of Palestinian statehood and the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) recent ruling affirming that Israel's 57-year occupation is a form of apartheid and illegal.

Statements by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich—who recently asserted that it may be "justified and moral" to starve 2 million Palestinians to death—have been entered as evidence in the South African-led ICJ genocide case concerning Israel's war on Gaza.

Borrell has mentioned some of the ministers' words and actions in previous calls for accountability for those who incite hate and violence.

"While the world pushes for a cease-fire in Gaza, Minister Ben-Gvir calls for cutting fuel and aid to civilians," he said on social media earlier this month. "Like Minister Smotrich's sinister statements, this is an incitement to war crimes."

"Sanctions must be on our E.U. agenda," Borrell added.

While human rights defenders welcomed Borrell's sanctions recommendations, some groups urged him to go even further.

"The [ICJ's] findings clearly point to violations of international law committed by Israel and to the obligations of third states not to legitimize or provide any assistance to Israel's illegal conduct," Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office, said on Thursday.

Geddie continued:

E.U. members states' supply of arms and equipment as well as their trade and investment with illegal Israeli settlements are enabling Israel's violations of international law and are contrary to their obligations under international law. There can be no business as usual with a state maintaining a brutal, unlawful occupation and perpetrating serious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, on a mass scale.

The relentless bombardment of Gaza amid a clear risk of genocide, the deadly spike in state-backed settler violence, and the latest military offensive in the West Bank are all byproducts of Israel's unlawful occupation and decades of impunity enabled by E.U. inaction.

"The E.U.'s call for a cease-fire and curbing settler violence rings hollow until it takes concrete actions—an immediate arms embargo, a ban on trade with Israeli settlements, and support for action at the U.N. to bring an end to Israel's unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory," Geddie added.

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