It has been nine months since Israel's genocidal war on Gaza began, killing more than 38,000 Palestinians, injuring more than 86,000 and displacing more than 1.9 million. Despite frequent words of condemnation, European leaders have done little to stop it. Worse, many European countries continue to support Israel economically and militarily.
Since the US is seen as the biggest backer of the Israeli war machine, it is easy to dismiss European support. However, a closer look at the extent of European financial and military assistance to Israel reveals the EU's complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and various atrocities in the occupied West Bank.
Supply of weapons used for genocide
The EU is the second-largest arms supplier to Israel after the United States. According to figures from the European External Action Service's COARM database, between 2018 and 2022, EU member states sold weapons worth €1.76 billion ($1.9 billion) to Israel.
Arms have continued to flow from EU countries to Israel even after the International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling in January that the Israeli military was committing genocide. The EU has a system for enforcing arms embargoes but has refused to apply them to Israel, forcing member states to slowly implement the measures under pressure from civil society, with little political will to do so and without meeting the necessary requirements.
Some EU countries, including Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the Belgian region of Wallonia, have announced that they would suspend arms transfers to Israel, but some of these statements were not followed by timely concrete actions or, when they were, they amounted to temporary or partial suspensions of arms transfers, which fell far short of a full arms embargo on Israel.
According to SIPRI, Germany is by far Europe’s largest supplier, providing Israel with 30% of its weapons between 2019 and 2023. Exports increased tenfold last year, from €32.3 million ($35 million) to €326.5 million ($354 million), with most licences granted after 7 October.
According to EU data, other major European suppliers to Israel between 2018 and 2022 included Romania, which issued export licenses worth €314.9 million, Italy, with €90.30 million ($98 million), the Czech Republic, with €81.55 million ($88.3 million) and Spain, with €62.9 million ($68.1 million). The EU has not yet published data on arms transfers for 2023.
In addition to supplying arms directly to Israel, EU arms are often exported indirectly to Israel via the United States. Although arms exports are subject to agreements with end users, the United States refuses to comply with this stipulation and EU countries do not enforce it. This makes it impossible to trace to what extent EU arms and components exported to the United States end up in weapons systems shipped to Israel.
However, EU military exports to Israel may be directly linked to the genocide in Gaza. Israeli Merkava tanks, which have been operating in Gaza since the ground invasion began in late October, use engine components made by the German company MTU (a subsidiary of Rolls Royce), while Sa'ar corvettes, warships built by the German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, have been active in the waters surrounding the besieged strip.
British company BAE Systems, in collaboration with Germany’s Rheinmetall, makes M109 self-propelled howitzers that have been used to bombard densely populated areas of Gaza. Amnesty International has found evidence that these artillery weapons also used white phosphorus munitions, which can burn skin to the bone and cause organ dysfunction; their use in civilian areas is restricted by international law.
The US-made F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza by the thousands rely on European components, with at least 25 percent of spare parts exported directly to Israel from Europe. Only the Netherlands has imposed restrictions on these components following a lawsuit filed by civil society organisations, which was won on appeal.
European public money for Israeli weapons
European countries not only export weapons to Israel amid a growing international consensus that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, but they also spend public money to support the weapons manufacturers that produce them.
New research by the Transnational Institute and Stop Wapenhandel reveals that European taxpayers' money, worth 426 million euros ($461.7 million), is currently funding companies that arm Israel.
German company Rheinmetall, which ships tank shells to Israel, has received more than 169 million euros ($183 million), while Finnish-Norwegian company Nammo, whose portable “bunker-buster” rocket launchers are exported to Israel, has received more than 123 million euros ($133 million). Other beneficiaries include Leonardo, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, BAE Systems and Renk.
European public money is also used to fund security and defence projects that benefit the Israeli war machine. Since 2008, 84 Israeli entities have received €69.39 million ($75 million) from a total of 132 security projects. The Ministry of National Security has been involved in most of the EU-funded security projects, despite systematically violating Palestinian human rights for decades.
Moreover, much of the knowledge production that has gone into developing Israel’s digital warfare tools currently deployed in Gaza was likely honed at universities that benefited from European research funding.
Since 7 October, the EU has provided €126 million ($136.5 million) in funding to 130 research projects involving Israeli entities. Of these projects, two are providing a total of €640,000 ($693,000) to the arms company Israel Aerospace Industries. In the years leading up to 7 October 2023, Israeli entities received €503 million ($545 million) under the Horizon Europe programme (2021-2023).
Moreover, EU countries have been spending taxpayers' money on Israeli weapons for decades, thereby supporting its military-industrial complex. Israel is among the world's top 10 arms exporters, and about 25 percent of its defense exports go to European countries.
Israeli companies often promote their products as “battle-tested,” a strategy that EU countries legitimize when doing business with them. Drones are by far the most popular product, and the EU’s border surveillance agency, Frontex, rents them to Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for surveillance flights over the Mediterranean Sea.
EU countries have continued to collaborate with Israeli arms companies after 7 October. Although France attempted to ban Israeli companies from participating in the Eurosatory arms fair, an initial court ruling to that effect was eventually overturned in a Paris court and Israeli entities were granted permission to attend.
The fact that European public money is being channelled to arms companies and other entities involved in Israel's attack on Gaza effectively means that the EU is financing a genocide.
For all its talk of human rights and the rule of law, the EU has failed to uphold either in response to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has left its credibility and legitimacy in tatters. It is not too late to repair some of the damage by imposing an arms embargo on Israel and stopping the flow of US weapons transiting through Europe to the genocidal regime. Failure to do so, particularly in light of the ICJ’s interim decision on the plausibility of genocide, risks the EU and its member states becoming complicit in that genocide.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
