Condemnation alone won’t change Israel’s trajectory. For that, concrete action on sanctions and Palestinian statehood is required
- Sanam Vakil is director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme
Nineteen months on from the 7 October Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza, Israel is under a new wave of international pressure and increasingly isolated from its partners and allies. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government recently announced its intention to reoccupy Gaza yet again, and called up Israeli reservists. In tandem, the illegal expansion of settlements and violence in the West Bank continues unabated. And as part of a tactic to bring pressure to bear on Hamas to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza, Israel halted the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza for two months, leading to widespread starvation and brutal conditions.
In reaction, the UK, France and Canada issued a joint statement expressing a strong rebuke of Israel’s war effort. The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, also announced a freeze on trade discussions with Israel, and the imposition of sanctions on settlers and organisations involved in West Bank violence. This reproach followed the Dutch foreign minister’s call to review the EU-Israel association agreement. The move, supported by a large number of EU states, criticised Israel’s conduct of war and could lead to sanctions. Spain’s prime minister went even further, calling Israel a genocidal state. Strikingly, even the staunchly pro-Israeli Trump administration is also taking its distance from Netanyahu’s government, with Donald Trump avoiding a stop in Israel on his Middle East tour. The US vice-president, JD Vance, has also chosen to delay a visit to Israel, suggesting that the administration wants to dissociate itself from the optics of this unending war.
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