Gathered one last time before the summer holidays in Brussels, the 27 ministers positioned themselves, on July 16, on the follow-up to be given to the report prepared by the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, on non-compliance by the Hebrew State of the Association Agreement with the European Union (EU); It had been revealed in mid-June. According to this document, “There are indications that Israel has not complied with its human rights obligations”principle mentioned in article 2 of the agreement.
EU states have for the moment refused to put on one or more of the ten retaliatory measures presented during Tuesday’s meeting by the high representative. These sanctions went from a suspension of the association agreement to more targeted measures, such as an embargo against products from the Jewish colonies of West Bank or the suspension of Israel’s participation in certain European programs, such as Erasmus for students and horizon for researchers.
If some countries required sanctions, half of the member states still did not want to hear about it, starting with Germany, the Czech Republic and Italy.
On this subject, I refer you to the report of the chat that we organized this morning with Jérôme Bourdon, media historian.
He recalls that the Israelis have not had up to the last days of horror images, which are themselves relatively few in relation to the extent of famine and destruction. It is of course necessary to be an exception for those who were actively looking for them on social networks, on the sons of Al-Jazira, which particularly concerns the Palestinian citizens of Israel (which is called in Israel “Israeli Arabs”).
In public space, these images have been filtered for a month or more when demonstrators (in tout small number) have brandished photos of dead children who are dead, without a sign of malnutrition, but as a simple reminder that Israel was responsible for the death of children. These images (enlarged) were the most present in the center of Tel Aviv, during a demonstration against the war that gathered, let’s say, a thousand people (but the demonstration was not very covered). Awareness exists, therefore, but remains modest.
To have another light on this, I refer you to an interview with Mondeon July 16, researcher Dahlia Scheindlin, installed in Tel Aviv. It detailed the absence of consensus on how to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and recalled that in a recent survey 82 % of Jewish Israelis were favorable to the expulsion of Gazaouis.
“In 2016, the idea of expelling the non -Jewish population was already widespread, as a survey carried out by the American think tank Pew Research Center had then shown: 48 % of Jewish Israelis interviewed were favorable to the expulsion of the Arabs of the State of Israel. Eight years later, in 2024, 87 % of Jewish Israelis estimated that the Israeli army used insufficient force or a suitable level ”, explained the researcher.
“Another survey, carried out in May this year, said that almost 80 % of Jewish Israelis judged that their country has little or not to take into consideration the suffering of the Gazaouie civilian population in the continuation of the war”said the specialist.
Paul