By Osama Al-Sharif

The EU has seen its geopolitical influence decline throughout the world in recent years, but no more so than in the Middle East, a region historically, economically and culturally closer to it than the US. The Europeans have been losing political influence for decades, especially after endorsing the US-sponsored peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.

Exclusive US oversight of the Oslo process sidelined the EU as a block, as well as the UN and Russia, although these three entities remain members of the Quartet — in addition to the US. But Washington has made it clear that it will neutralize any meaningful role of the Quartet to avoid laying any serious pressure on its ally and proxy, Israel.

But the EU’s political influence on parties to the Israel-Palestine conflict has also declined in recent years. In this case, it suffered a fatal blow following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing brutal Israeli war on Gaza, which is ongoing and has now stretched to Lebanon.

The Europeans, including the British after leaving the union, are divided when it comes to exerting meaningful pressure on Israel to cease its assault on Gaza. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, European leaders flocked to embrace Benjamin Netanyahu and to declare that Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against the aggressor, meaning Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But they soon realized that Netanyahu had unleashed an indiscriminate blitz whose aim was not to decapitate Hamas, as he has claimed, but to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure and eventually drive more than 2.2 million Palestinians toward death, either by direct bombing or by starvation and disease. It became clear that Netanyahu had other plans as he waged what nongovernmental organizations, UN rapporteurs and even........

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