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Aftermath of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

A man wails after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Gaza on October 9, 2023.

(Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Sanctions Against Israel Are Long Overdue

If Netanyahu’s war machine is not stopped, the annihilation of the Palestinian people will continue, major parts of the Gaza Strip will be annexed with a plan for Jewish resettlement, and the annexation of the West Bank will be finalized.

The use of sanctions to coerce states to change policy and behavior has a long history, dating back to antiquity. In 432 BC, the Athenian statesman Pericles issued the “Megarian Decree,” which banned merchants of Megara from accessing harbors and marketplaces in the Athenian empire. In the modern times, economic sanctions took primarily the form of naval blockades. The first naval blockade is believed to have been “declared by the Dutch in 1584.” In the 19th century, pacific blockades became a common strategy of powerful European states, with the aim being to weaken the economy of the enemy. In the early 20th century, the League of Nations used sanctions to compel aggressors to abandon the resort to arms, as it did in the case of Italy in order to discontinue that country’s aggression against Ethiopia.

However, since the end of World War II, it has been primarily the United States that has been resorting to sanctions in order to punish nations or non-state actors for pursuing policies or engaging in actions that pose a challenge to its guest for global dominance. The U.S. embargo against Cuba, which has endured for over 60 years and touches every aspect of Cuban life, stands out as the longest sanctions regime in modern history even though it is illegal and has been denounced by the United Nations General Assembly over 30 times. Only Israel sides with the U.S. for the continuation of the economic, commercial, and financial embargo on Cuba.

Because of its unique relationship with the global hegemon, Israel is one country that has escaped comprehensive sanctions against it in spite of what Amnesty International has called its “ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession,” coupled with large-scale massacres and accusations of being an apartheid state that is now committing genocidal acts in Gaza. The time, however, has come for the international community to take strong measures against the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and impose “crippling sanctions” on the Israeli economy and thus on its war machine.

Such course of action is long overdue, but it is gaining traction across the globe, even inside Israel. The Hague Group, a group of nations from the Global South, has not only decried Israel’s actions in Gaza but called on all states on July 16 following a two-day summit in Bogotá, which brought together representatives from over 30 states, to impose a series of sanctions against Israel in order to stop the genocide and apartheid. Brazil has already moved forward with imposing forceful sanctions against Israel, which include exports of military material. Brazil’s foreign minister delivered a powerful speech at a high-level United Nations conference on Palestine on July 28 in which he said that his country “will not tolerate Israeli impunity.” High-profile Israeli figures have also urged “crippling sanctions” on Israel over its starvation-driven campaign in Gaza.

The tide is indeed turning. The West’s shameful silence on Gaza for the past 21 or so months is coming to an end.

Very belatedly, but Europe is also losing patience with Israel. Several European countries, which include Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and lately Sweden, are calling for the suspension of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement in order to stop the genocide. More than 80 British Members of Parliament and Lords have issued a call for the U.K. government to impose widespread sanctions on Israel. Fifty-eight former ambassadors of the European Union have lambasted the E.U. for its “complicity” over its silence on Israeli genocide and urged all European leaders and government to take immediate measures to end “atrocity crimes against the Palestinian people—above all in Gaza, but also in the occupied West Bank.”

Indeed, in their letter, the 58 former E.U. envoys went to great lengths not only to highlight Israel’s crimes in Gaza but also to underscore the vile plan of the far-right Israeli government for annexation of the occupied West Bank. They wrote:

…Meanwhile, in the West Bank, violent Israeli settlers, with full protection by the Israeli military, have waged a campaign of terror against Palestinian communities. Homes are torched, inhabitants are murdered, families expelled, water sources poisoned, herding animals stolen, olive groves destroyed, and land annexed in violation of international law. The perpetrators who act with impunity are armed and encouraged by state officials. These settlers are not rogue actors—they are the front-line agents of a government-driven agenda to annex and ethnically cleanse Palestinian land.

The tide is indeed turning. The West’s shameful silence on Gaza for the past 21 or so months is coming to an end. In a first, the European Commission recommended the suspension of Israel’s access to the E.U.’s research and innovation fund over the apocalyptic situation in Gaza, but Germany and Italy blocked the proposal.

In the U.S., of course, the situation remains very dismal. The Trump administration is sanctioning individuals who criticize Israel and call for economic sanctions against its key ally, such as Francesca Paola Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, and scolds those European governments that are preparing to recognize a Palestinian state. And the Senate has just rejected a resolution introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block arms sales to Israel over its destruction of Gaza. Yet, a record number of Democrats voted in support of Sander’s resolution to block U.S. military sales to Israel, while polls show that U.S. public support for Israel’s actions in Gaza has dropped to a new low.

Pending on one’s philosophical perspective on the fundamental nature of reality, the situation on starving and besieged Gaza with regard to the urgent need of imposing “crippling sanctions” on Israel, which Netanyahu and his far-right government has turned into an autocracy, a global pariah, and an outright rogue state, is either a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty. Regardless, the point is that if Netanyahu’s war machine is not stopped, the annihilation of the Palestinian people will continue, major parts of the Gaza Strip will be annexed with a plan for Jewish resettlement, and the annexation of the West Bank will be finalized.

“Denial” about what is happening in Gaza may be “legitimate” in Israel, as the iconic Israeli journalist Gideon Levy recently put it, but should be seen as a totally intolerable situation for every government across the globe that professes to respect human rights and claims not to tolerate barbarity in our own age, even though we know fully well that what guides state policies are rarely moral considerations. Putting an end to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank is first and foremost about stopping Israeli killings of Palestinians but is also about restoring human dignity and human decency for our entire species.

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