Ex-EU Diplomat Borrell Urges Sanctions on Israel, Sparks Backlash

In a recent interview, former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused the European Union of being complicit in Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza, citing alleged human rights violations and European-made weapons used by the IDF.

While Borrell now claims moral outrage over Israel’s military actions, he ignored the brutality of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, in which 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered and over 200 kidnapped, acts that meet every definition of terrorism and war crimes.

Under his tenure, the EU imposed thousands of sanctions on Russia but remained almost entirely silent on Hamas, Iran, or Qatar, state and non-state actors directly funding or arming terror in the region.

Borrell suggested that Ursula von der Leyen is to blame for "stalling sanctions" against Israel, while ignoring the legal complexity and deep democratic debates inside member states.

If a third of the bombs used by Israel are made in Europe, as Borrell argued, it is not proof of complicity, but rather of alliances, arms agreements, and shared security interests built over decades.

Borrell further accused the EU of risking its "international image" by failing to sanction Israel, a claim that reveals more about ideological prisms than about any genuine concern for international law.