The Guardline
The president of the European Union Commission called for sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel on Wednesday, as international outrage grew over the country’s strikes on Qatar and Yemen and its ongoing starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
“What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at her annual State of the Union address in Strasbourg, France. “People killed while begging for food. Mothers holding lifeless babies. These images are simply catastrophic.”
Von der Leyen’s proposed sanctions signaled a possible shift in the West’s relationship with its decadeslong ally. She said the commission, which operates as the executive branch of the European Union and can take limited unilateral actions, would end its bilateral support of Israel and suspend funding for projects within Israel, with exceptions for work with Israeli civil society and Israel’s Holocaust remembrance center. But more dramatic actions — like sanctioning Israeli ministers and partially suspending the EU’s trade agreement with Israel — would require potentially difficult votes from EU member states.
In the United States, meanwhile, the chorus of progressive voices calling for an end to the country’s complicity in the ongoing genocide escalated — but remains stymied by the status quo in Washington.
Gathered in the pouring rain on Wednesday morning, progressive Democrats in Congress joined activists including the freed Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and the actors Cynthia Nixon and Morgan Spector to urge Congress to pass the Block the Bombs Act. The legislation would block the United States from sending some U.S.-made weapons to Israel.
“Netanyahu is using U.S.-supplied weapons to perpetrate this campaign of starvation, displacement, and death in violation of U.S. and international humanitarian law,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who introduced the Block the Bombs Act in the House.
The legislation now boasts 45 co-sponsors, including several Democrats who’ve received funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in recent election cycles.
Even with the growing support for ending the U.S. shipment of certain types of weapons to Israel among Democrats, passing the Block the Bombs Act in either chamber is an uphill battle. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have remained steadfast in their support of supplying weapons to Israel.
No Republicans have signed on to co-sponsor the Block the Bombs Act in the House. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced similar legislation in the Senate, but despite gaining some momentum among Democrats, it has not been able to garner enough support to pass.
Dramatic penalties against Israel have similarly gained vocal support in the EU but still struggle to gain final approval. Von der Leyen’s proposals to sanction “extremist ministers” and “violent settlers” and partially suspend the EU’s trade agreement with Israel likely faces long odds, as less ambitious proposals to sanction Israel have stymied — leaving the fate of these two proposals unclear — even as some European nations have condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza and Qatar.
But in the U.S. and EU alike, critics of Israel’s genocide highlighted the moral imperative of action despite political opposition.
“Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity, this must stop,” von der Leyen said Wednesday in Strasbourg.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., made similar comments in Washington.
“Our humanity is at stake here,” she said. “Vengeance and greed cannot be the United States’ policy doctrine. No country can bomb their way to peace. Starving a child is violent. The children are all of ours, always. History has its eyes on us. Our children will ask what we did in this moment. And the only acceptable answer is everything we could.”
Khalil, an Algerian Palestinian activist who was detained by the Trump administration for his advocacy against Israel’s genocide at Columbia University, said he’d braved a trip to the seat of the federal government to fight for his people.
“The U.S. government has sent over $30 billion worth of weapons and equipment to the Israeli occupation power over the past two years,” Khalil said. “These weapons and equipment are being used by Israel to kill Palestinians to carry out mass atrocity after another mass atrocity against my people. There is one clear and obvious way for Congress to act and save lives. They should stop all weapons, all weapons. Stop sending all weapons to Israel.”
