Preparations to implement Israel’s new death penalty law have begun. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has claimed that a new prison wing is under construction where the killings will take place, and that new “red” uniforms for Palestinian prisoners have already been ordered.
Meanwhile, the global “condemnation” has stopped. Like others, the EU, which prides itself on high human rights standards, is still turning a blind eye. This is despite the fact that there is an explicit clause in its association agreement with Israel that demands respect for human rights.
Official responses have been nothing short of insulting.
When the bill was approved by the Knesset’s national security committee late last month, EU foreign affairs spokesman Anouar El Anouni said, It has been told The measure was described as “deeply concerning” and reaffirmed the group’s opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances.
Nevertheless, in the same statement, the EU praised Israel’s reported “past principled position, its obligations under international law as well as its commitment to democratic principles”. It is as if Israel had never carried out its brutal decades-long occupation, illegal colonization and genocidal campaign in Gaza and Lebanon. The statement then “encouraged” Israel to meet the EU’s conditions on human rights under the EU–Israel Association Agreement.
On March 30, just before the final vote on the bill, European countries, including the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, issued a joint. statement Expressing “deep concern” about the bill, without warning of any concrete steps.
On 31 March, after the bill was passed, the EU issued another statement reiterating its negotiating points, saying only that the measure represented a “serious regression” of Israel’s own commitments and practices – a claim that directly contradicts the findings of the EU investigation, international and Palestinian UN bodies, human rights organizations and the December 2024 and July 2024 advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice.
There was no mention of the Palestinian people targeted by this law or of Palestinian prisoners who have suffered unprecedented levels of brutality and death over the past two and a half years. There was no acknowledgment of the suffering of the families of Palestinian prisoners.
When the bill was passed, my own family reacted with a mixture of heartbreak and bitter recognition. We were sick, but not surprised. My father was a freedom fighter in his youth and spent 14 years in Israeli prisons for protesting the occupation before being released in a prisoner exchange. I couldn’t help but imagine my father’s story unfolding in today’s reality.
He will be one of many Palestinian political prisoners awaiting execution following a military court verdict that found 99 percent of Palestinian defendants “guilty.” They will be punished simply for rejecting colonial domination, for standing up for their rights and the rights of their people. And in today’s reality, in the name of democratic values and human rights, the very institutions that claim to represent me and all European citizens will be complicit in allowing his execution.
It is important to note that the EU’s stance is neither surprising nor a diplomatic mistake. This is further confirmation that the EU’s purported commitment to human rights ends where Israel’s impunity begins.
This contradiction is particularly apparent when compared to the EU’s position towards other allies and adversaries. It has repeatedly condemned the use of the death penalty in Iran, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and most recently in Russian-occupied Donetsk. In each of these cases, the EU has explicitly linked the death penalty to gross violations of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions and to the broader contexts in which each case is found.
The hypocrisy became even more apparent when it decided to halt discussions on sanctions and amendments to the EU-Israel Association Agreement after the so-called US-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza in October 2025.
Since then, Israel has continued to disregard international law and violate human rights, expanding its occupation of Gaza to more than 50 percent of the territory, advancing settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian lands, imposing sanctions on and attacking UNRWA facilities built with EU funds, expelling international humanitarian NGOs from the Gaza Strip, forcibly displacing thousands of people in the occupied West Bank, and Thousands of people have been displaced in Lebanon and Iran, and access to holy sites in Jerusalem has been closed. The well-documented list of violations continues to grow.
But the EU can no longer ignore them as European citizens increasingly reject Israeli impunity.
Over one million Europeans have signed the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) “Justice for Palestine” petition calling for the complete suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement, making it the fastest-growing ECI to date. This demand has been supported by more than 60 human rights and humanitarian organizations as well as more than 350 former diplomats.
The EU cannot exceed both its legal obligations and the clear demands of its people. It must act decisively. At the Foreign Affairs Council on 21 April, several European states will again table the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. This is no longer a technical debate. This is a test of political will.
The remaining EU member states face a simple choice: act, or remain complicit. Anything less than suspension is a failure to uphold EU law, a betrayal of its stated values, and a rejection of the growing public demand across Europe to end Israeli impunity and deliver justice for the Palestinians.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
