Israel: A European Reflection

Israel: A European Reflection

My Changing View of Israel: A European Reflection

✍️Authors Note:

✍️Author’s Note
Europe’s relationship with Israel mirrors its own contradictions: guilt, morality, and selective empathy. This reflection seeks understanding without illusion — a call for moral consistency beyond politics.

1. Introduction: The European Thesis

For a long time, my view of Israel was shaped by a deeply held European belief in the shared values of liberal democracy, the rule of law, and universal human rights. This belief had roots in the trauma of the Second World War and the Holocaust, which imprinted on Europeans the moral necessity of “never again.” That ethos fostered widespread support for Israel as a refuge for a historically persecuted people.

But what happens when the nation that was once seen as the embodiment of humanistic resilience begins to violate the very principles it was meant to uphold? What should Europe do when its shared values are repudiated by the very country to which they offered moral solidarity? These are no longer abstract questions or supply easy answers.

Today, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has increasingly moved away from humanism and toward isolationism, authoritarianism, and occupation. The central dilemma is whether Europe will remain passive—or complicit—in the face of Israel’s abandonment of the values we believed to hold in common.

2. Early Admiration: The David and Goliath Mythos

Growing up in postwar Europe, Israel was seen through a moral lens shaped by stories of resistance and rebirth. My high school teacher, who had lived through the Second World War, would speak of Israel as a modern miracle, a brave little David fending off the surrounding Arab Goliaths. But he was also a man of historical awareness, able to connect past and present. He would likely have noted today how Israeli society is fractured along fault lines that resemble those of ancient Israel—divisions that, if left unchecked, could bring about its downfall. As Will Durant observed, “History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up.”

3. Awakening and Disillusionment

As I grew older, my view began to shift—first in the early 1980s, after my travels to Israel, and then more decisively in the early 1990s, when the romantic vision I had once held began to falter. Israel was no longer the underdog. Its policies increasingly reflected a systemic disregard for international law and a deepening occupation of Palestinian land.

Figures like former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt (1931–2024), once staunch supporters of Israel, began to voice open criticism and speak frankly about the injustices facing Palestinians. Van Agt’s later advocacy for Palestinian rights and the establishment of The Rights Forum reflected a broader European moral reawakening. For him, international law and universal human rights were not abstract ideals—they were non-negotiable, binding norms enshrined in the Dutch constitution and, arguably, in the spirit of the European Union Constitution of 2004. As Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, noted during the recent Dries van Agt Memorial Lecture, “this was the only path towards a peaceful world order, in ‘the holy land, as he used to call it’, and beyond.”

The Nakba—the forced displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians from around 400 villages in 1948—was no longer a distant historical event but a foundational trauma that still shapes the daily realities of millions. My disillusionment deepened as I came to understand how European silence and U.S. complicity had enabled Israel to consolidate a system of control and occupation that bore all the hallmarks of apartheid.

4. Ideological and Political Change in Israel

This disillusionment coincided with Israel’s ideological transformation. In its early years, Israel was animated by both secular socialism and biblical aspiration. While David Ben-Gurion evoked the Bible as a “deed of ownership,” he remained a pragmatist. But over time, the pragmatism waned and the messianic fervor grew. The project of Greater Israel—which envisions permanent control over all territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—has taken on new life, particularly under Netanyahu’s leadership.

Since assuming control of Likud in 1992, Netanyahu has systematically restructured the party, replacing internal checks with a primaries-based model that cemented his personal control. This shift reflects a broader authoritarian trend in Israeli governance. Democracy is increasingly sidelined in favor of a politics rooted in fear, biblical entitlement, and permanent militarization. The Israeli state now increasingly conflates its security with the suppression of Palestinian national identity.

5. The Role of the United States

The United States has played a pivotal role—not just through diplomatic cover, but through massive operational and material support. Since 1967, U.S. strategy in the Middle East has aimed to guarantee Israel’s security while curbing Russian and Iranian influence, securing energy supplies, promoting regional stability, and managing domestic electoral concerns shaped by pro-Israel lobbying.

Over the decades, different U.S. administrations have proposed peace plans: Carter’s Camp David Accords (1979), Clinton’s Parameters (2000), Bush’s Road Map (2003), Kerry’s Six Principles (2016), and Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” (2020). Yet these efforts, increasingly skewed toward Israeli interests, have eroded the credibility of American mediation. Trump’s relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the normalization agreements (Abraham Accords) with Arab states all underscored a one-sided commitment to Israeli expansion.

Behind the scenes, American interference—often encouraged by Israeli lobbying—has destabilized the wider region. General Wesley Clark’s 2007 revelation about a Pentagon plan to topple seven governments (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran) exposed a regime-change agenda that served Israeli geostrategic interests. This culminated in Operation Timber Sycamore and other CIA interventions that deepened the wars in Syria and elsewhere.

For 25 years, U.S. strategy in the Middle East has increasingly served a vision of the region shaped by Israeli security imperatives, often at the cost of international law and regional peace. Today, Netanyahu’s focus remains on Iran—the last remaining adversary to this strategy.

6. On the Ground: A Firsthand Encounter

Visiting Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories changed something in me. Seeing the checkpoints, the separation wall, the segregated roads, and the daily humiliations faced by Palestinians—things I had only read about—was a profound moral shock. It reminded me of what systemic injustice looks like: a bureaucratized apparatus of control, dressed up in legal language but devoid of human empathy.

7. Terrorism and Moral Complexity

None of this is to deny the real trauma of terrorism. Palestinian attacks against civilians have caused immense suffering. But the asymmetry is staggering. The Israeli state, with its advanced military and intelligence apparatus, has repeatedly used overwhelming force, leading to massive civilian casualties and regional destabilization.

Since the 1960s, the cycle of violence has destroyed lives and hardened narratives on all sides. But when terror becomes an excuse for permanent occupation, moral clarity must prevail.

8. Oslo and the Shattered Peace

The Oslo Accords once held a promise: two states, side by side, living in peace. That promise now lies in ruins. Settlement expansion, legal fragmentation, and the refusal to negotiate in good faith have rendered the two-state solution a political fiction. Netanyahu and his allies have openly rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood. The Accords, once a roadmap for peace, are now little more than a historical footnote.

9. Gaza and the Erasure of a People

What is happening in Gaza today defies words. Entire neighbourhoods flattened. Families wiped out. Hospitals bombed. Children buried under rubble. Some say we must not use the word genocide lightly—but genocide is not a metaphor. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines it as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The destruction of living conditions, the prevention of births, the forcible transfer of children—when done with intent—constitutes genocide. What we are witnessing in Gaza bears these hallmarks. It also reflects the grim logic of settler-colonial genocide: eliminate the native presence and take the land. The case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is not merely symbolic; it is a test of whether international law still has meaning.

10. Legal and Moral Violations

The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal. The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes. Yet these legal findings have not altered Western policy. In practice, Israel continues to act with impunity—secure in the knowledge that powerful allies will shield it from consequences.

11. The Question of European Responsibility

This raises the urgent question: What is Europe’s responsibility?

After 500 years of Western hegemony, Europe is unaccustomed to moral self-scrutiny. Economic interests often trump ethical commitments. But if we truly believe in the rule of law, then we must act on it. Europe should scrutinize all forms of economic, diplomatic, and military cooperation with Israel to ensure that we are not complicit in systemic violations of international law.

This includes support for the ICJ and ICC, and—if necessary—the implementation of sanctions. Neutrality in the face of injustice is not impartiality; it is complicity.

12. Conclusion: A Shift in Perspective

The change in my view of Israel was not a sudden rupture but a slow unlearning. I still believe in the right of Israel to exist—but not in a form that denies the humanity and nationhood of another people. Israel cannot remain both a Jewish state and a democracy if it continues to deny equal rights to millions of Palestinians.

The one-state reality—de facto apartheid, with unequal rights based on ethnicity—is unsustainable. Eventually, Israel must choose: liberal democracy or ethnocracy.

If it chooses the latter, it risks losing its moral legitimacy and becoming an international pariah. If it chooses the former, it must reckon with the need for radical equality.

Europe cannot make this choice for Israel—but it can refuse to enable injustice.

As Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.”

We owe that honesty—to ourselves, to history, and to those whose lives depend on it.

Netherlands, WJJH – 9.6.2025

📌 Blog Excerpt

Reflection: on a changing perception of Israel, shifting from admiration for its founding ideals to disillusionment regarding its policies under Netanyahu, characterized by authoritarianism and occupation. This disillusionment arises from witnessing injustices in Palestinian territories and questions Europe’s complicity in systemic violations of international law, emphasizing the need for moral accountability.