news

It’s in Europe’s interest to put sanctions on Israel - Financial times

i found this very interesting article from yesterday from the FT, which in my opinion is a good news site for posible and future policy push by the capitalist states since unlike other media is not too overly dramatic and tries to follow a realist IR outlook which most media doesnt

in this one the talk about the posivility of sanctions by the UE if they wish to act

In the past few weeks, EU foreign ministers have triggered a review of Israel’s association agreement with the bloc, Britain has halted trade talks, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund blacklisted an Israeli company for facilitating energy deliveries to West Bank settlements, and the leaders of France, the UK and Canada threatened to put sanctions on the country. Even Germany, Israel’s most stalwart backer in Europe, is criticising the country’s conduct.

The Bank of Israel invests about a quarter of its relatively large stock of reserves in Europe, which a freeze would make unavailable for their financial stabilisation function and could in time be put towards any compensation due to Palestinians.

The hardest-hitting sanctions would probably be on trade and travel. Israel sources nearly half of its goods imports from Europe and sends more than a third of its exports to the continent, according to its statistics bureau. A significant share of the imports consists of fuels, a trade Europe has outsize influence over due to its dominance of shipping-related services. At least a quarter of Israel’s large services trade is also with European markets. Restrictions on business services and tourism would be highly disruptive.

Preparations are also needed to counter any US sabotage, which is already under way with Washington’s debilitating moves against the International Criminal Court.

By showing it is ready to act against Israel if it so chooses, the EU would show it is ready to act against grave breaches of international law by anyone. Legal consistency would make threats of sanctions more credible; incentives to respect European red lines would strengthen them and signal consequences for crossing them.

I think the issue with Israel may be used by a few of the EU capitalist class (mostly expecting macron, spain and the germans now) to try to justify a push into a more pragmatic foreign policy using the justification upholding international law.

this would let them better their image with the global south who while being mostly powerless in the issue of Gaza are an important current and future market for resourses, labour and consumers for the EU, also as we have seen last month the UE has slowly gain better relation with China with the agreement to suspent sanctions between both (in relation to the claims of Uyghurs genocide) and this could lead to a great integration into the belt and road between the EU and China.

This may anger the USA and Trump could push for retaliatory tariffs but i think some europeans see that its posible to let the relations with the US decay a bit since they expect that Trump's worst impulses (tariffs, santions, etc) would probably be stopped or minimized by the interests of the USA capitalist class who depend in the european market, so they could use this moment of negative relations to get a better standing with China and then when Trump term's is up a more moderate president could likely be elected (they probably expect like a dem) and then they could better their relations with the USA.

I there are some weaknesses and and unlikely situations in this EU plan to move to pragmatism that could hurt or stop this policy, like being able to fully-mostly fix the labour issue, what if they arent able to effectively compete in the B&R market against the chinese or maybe they chiken out and go back to fully support the US. But to me this is the Policy this article seems to push for

Also i think the UK will chicken out for sure, also if you like this silly geopolitics analisis by me maybe you would enjoy the power fantasy by kieron gillen, its really good