Internal paper shows EU sought to shield Israel from sanctions

Protesters demand EU action against Israel. (David Cronin)

An internal paper reveals that European Union officials have gone to considerable lengths in assuring Israel that they would continue cooperating with it during the genocidal war against Gaza.

Despite frequent talk about how “red lines” must not be crossed, the EU has so far backed away from collectively sanctioning the Israeli state as it massacres and starves Palestinians.

The determination to preserve a business as usual approach is evident from a September 2024 document, obtained via a freedom of information request.

High-level Brussels officials held a discussion that month with Dror Bin, head of the Israel Innovation Authority. Briefing notes prepared for the meeting celebrated the EU’s partnership with Israel on scientific research as “excellent and beneficial to both parties.”

The paper makes clear that the European Commission – the EU’s executive – wished to preserve and even strengthen that partnership.

For the EU it is “extremely important” to work with Israel as it has a “top-notch innovation capacity,” the paper says. At 5.44 percent of gross domestic product, Israel’s expenditure on research and innovation is considerably higher than the 2.26 percent average for the EU’s 27 countries.

Rather than containing any specific details about the Gaza genocide, the paper merely referred to “the current conflict in the Middle East.”

Palestine solidarity groups and numerous academics had called for Israel to be expelled from Horizon Europe, the EU’s scientific research program. Yet the paper underscored that the European Commission was opposed to those calls.

Ending participation in the program “solely on the basis of the nationality should be considered as an improper termination” and “amounting to discrimination,” the paper – see below – says.

The argument put forward here betrays the pro-Israel bias of the EU institutions.

The Gaza genocide involves racism in its rawest form. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has repeatedly framed it as a war of “civilization against barbarism.” At one point, he invoked the Bible to apparently threaten an entire population with annihilation.

Although Palestinians are viewed as “human animals” who may be butchered en masse, the EU has been eager to paint Israel – the state carrying out the genocide – as a potential victim of discrimination.

“Immense pressure”

The EU’s phrasing closely resembles language found in an appeal made by Israel’s Association of University Heads a few months prior.

In June last year, that association categorized calls for Israel’s exclusion from EU research activities as “discriminatory treatment.”

The association sent two appeals that month to Iliana Ivanova, then the EU commissioner overseeing scientific research. One of the letters stated that “EU project officers have been helpful in resisting calls for the exclusion of Israeli participants from EU funding, but they are under immense pressure and need guidance.”

The “immense pressure” is almost certainly a reference to the massive public revulsion at the horrors Israel has inflicted on Gaza.

In response to that pressure, the European Commission finally proposed on 27 July this year that Israel should be “partially” suspended from research cooperation.

The proposal – which has been rejected by Germany, Israel’s largest ally among the EU’s governments – would have applied to small firms making technology that can have military applications.

Under current rules, all EU-financed research projects are nominally limited to civilian use.

The European Commission has nonetheless been assessing a widening of its research program so that weapons development can be funded.

The paper prepared for the aforementioned meeting between Brussels officials and the Israel Innovation Authority notes that the widening was raised during an earlier discussion with diplomats representing Netanyahu’s government.

During that earlier discussion – held in April 2024 – the Israelis expressed preferences for how EU research with a possible military dimension should be handled and it was agreed that there would be further consultation on the surrounding issues.

There is only one possible way to interpret this information: The European Union has been brainstorming about future weapons development with Israel at a time when that state is conducting a war of extermination.

Following Netanyahu’s new announcement that he is expanding the war on Gaza, the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has banned the supply of weapons to Israel if those weapons are intended for use in Gaza.

Merz’s ban does not lessen the culpability of the Berlin political establishment. The US and Germany were the two biggest arms exporters to Israel ahead of the genocide and both have maintained the weapons flow since October 2023.

Nor should it be forgotten that Merz has recently praised Israel for doing the West’s “dirty work.” While his observation was focused on Iran, the attacks on that country cannot be disentangled from the decades of subjugation which Israel has inflicted on Palestinians.

All of Israel’s violence can be considered as dirty work. Dirty work in which Europe has connived for decades.