EU foreign policy chief pushes member states to sanction Israeli ministers

Diplomats say it is unlikely the EU would find the necessary unanimous agreement among its 27 members to impose sanctions.

By The Algemeiner and Reuters

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has asked the bloc’s members if they want to impose sanctions on some Israeli ministers.

Borrell did not name any of the Israeli ministers to whom he was referring or specify which messages he had in mind.

However, he was likely referring to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom he has previously suggested sanctioning.

In recent weeks, the EU foreign policy chief has publicly criticized Ben-Gvir and Smotrich for statements he has described as “sinister” and “an incitement to war crimes.”

“I initiated the procedure to ask the member states if they consider [it] appropriate to include in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers [who] have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law,” he told reporters on arrival at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Earlier this month, Borrell condemned comments by the two ministers in a post on X/Twitter and wrote, “Sanctions must be on the EU agenda.”

Borrell has previously come under fire for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and for accusing the Jewish state of using “starvation as a weapon of war” in Hamas-ruled Gaza — a claim furiously rejected by Israeli officials.

The ongoing war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel, where they went on a rampage murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250 hostages.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.

Diplomats say it is unlikely the EU would find the necessary unanimous agreement among its 27 members to impose sanctions on Israeli government ministers.

But Borrell’s decision to float such a proposal indicates the level of anger among some European officials toward Israeli ministers.

Israel‘s foreign minister Israel Katz accused Borrell of targeting him with false claims that he had called for Palestinians to be displaced from Judea and Samaria.

“I oppose the displacement of any population from their homes,” he said.

Ireland, one of the EU’s most anti-Israel members, said on Thursday it backed Borrell’s suggestion.

“We will be supporting Josep Borrell’s recommendation for sanctions in respect of settler organizations in the West Bank who are facilitating [the] expansion of settlements, and also to Israeli ministers,” Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told reporters as he arrived at the Brussels meeting.

Martin also accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in Gaza.

“This is a war against Palestinians not just against Hamas. The level of civilian casualties and dead is unconscionable,” he told reporters.

“It’s a war on the population. No point in trying to fudge this.”

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.

However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

Ireland has been one of Israel’s fiercest critics since Oct. 7, leading Israel’s ambassador to Dublin to warn that the European country is “not an hones broker” in the Middle East conflict.

ben gvirBezalel SmotrichEUjosep borrellSanctions