Dyab Abou Jahjah
Today, the European Union voted to review its Association Agreement with Israel. Not to suspend it. Not to cancel it. Just… to review it. After more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, after mass graves were uncovered at hospitals, after children were pulled lifeless from rubble —Europe has decided it may need to reconsider its relationship with the state responsible. For months, Europe stood silent. It sold weapons, defended Israel on global platforms, and upheld an agreement that promises “respect for human rights” while Gaza was being starved, bombed, and buried. Palestinian civilians cried out—doctors, journalists, mothers, teachers, aid workers—all begging the world to see them, to act, to stop the carnage. Europe didn’t. It waited. And now, when the world has seen too much to ignore, it takes a small step and calls it progress. But how do you explain a “review” to the mother whose entire family was wiped out in a single airstrike? To the doctor operating without anesthesia on the floor of a shelled hospital? To the child who lost both legs in an attack funded by Europe’s military trade? This is not accountability. This is face-saving. A response to pressure, not to principle. If Europe truly wants to stand on the side of justice, this must be the beginning of something real: suspend the agreement, stop all arms exports, hold war criminals accountable and end the system of impunity that made this massacre possible.