Reflections on sanctioning Israel before the 2 July debate in Luxembourg

One year ago, around this time, I was in Bethlehem, Palestine. That morning, we had spent time on a video call with Gaza, where a Palestinian journalist told us about life under the constant bombings by the Israeli army. Speaking to us from under a field tent, he described the severe shortage of water and food, and about his wife and son, who had been killed just days earlier.

That evening, I sat on a terrace, gazing out over the Palestinian hills. My eyes eventually settled on a concrete wall, straight ahead, stretching as far as I could see. Beyond the wall stood modern buildings with white façades and red roofs, buildings that felt familiar to me as a European.

What I was looking at was the apartheid wall, begun in 2002 and declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. Stretching roughly 700 kilometers, it cuts through the occupied Palestinian territories, separating villages and lands with grave violations of human rights. The buildings belonged to the Har Homa settlement, one of over 250 Israeli settlements built since 1967 on land confiscated from Palestinians, all of which are considered illegal under international law.

The Netanyahu government has succeeded, despite a reality visible to the naked eye, in convincing not only its own citizens but also people beyond Israel’s borders that there is no colonial occupation, no apartheid, and no October 6. And if he managed to do so, it was in large part thanks to the impunity granted by the West to the Zionist state.

In 2014, during the Protective Edge operation, Israel launched a military offensive on Gaza that killed over 2000 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, and destroyed civilian infrastructure: schools, hospitals, and homes. Despite international condemnation and serious violations documented by the UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, Israel faced no sanctions from European governments or the United States. On the contrary, political, economic, and military support,especially from the U.S., remained unwavering.

Nearly ten years later, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: over 60,000 people have been killed; 70% of the Strip’s infrastructure has been destroyed; nearly 2 million Palestinians have been displaced; and 96% of the population faces severe food insecurity. And still, in the face of these crimes, Western governments continue to take no concrete action. If history repeats itself, it is because it has been allowed to. And Israel makes no attempt to hide it.

On July 2, the Luxembourgish Parliament will discuss the petition launched in January of this year. Around 4,700 Luxembourg residents have signed it, calling on the government to impose sanctions on Israel. We are calling for concrete measures, the kind that, had they been implemented earlier, could have prevented the carnage we are witnessing today.

We call on the Luxembourgish government, along with other European governments, to adopt a position grounded in truth and justice by formally recognising Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land and the apartheid system imposed on the Palestinian people. Then, if applied consistently, the logical outcome according to international law should be the imposition of sanctions and a boycott of Israel until a just and lasting peace is achieved through the end of the occupation.

Last summer, a petition to recognise the State of Palestine was brought before Parliament. Lawmakers decided the timing was not right, arguing that recognition at that moment could have legitimised Hamas’s terrorist actions. Eleven months later, after watching people in Gaza die of hunger, while Israeli soldiers shoot at Palestinians waiting in line for a bag of flour, governments are only just beginning to take a timid stand. Luxembourg's Foreign Minister, Xavier Bettel, recently stated that the country could consider recognising the State of Palestine, provided a package of measures is approved by a majority at the United Nations.

But today, recognising Palestine as a state is not enough, and perhaps it never was. Now, such recognition risks becoming a symbolic and belated gesture, a way to patch over months of silence in the face of destruction and injustice, of which we have been not only witnesses but also accomplices.

Israel, as a powerful settler-colonial state, has shown no willingness to alter the status quo. On the contrary, it continues to suppress, often violently, any form of Palestinian resistance. Waiting for the oppressor to voluntarily relinquish power, while simultaneously legitimising its actions, is both unrealistic and morally indefensible. The international community must act. Only sustained economic pressure and diplomatic isolation have the potential to force meaningful change and uphold the principles of justice, equality, and international law.

Sanctions are not extreme. They are not a punishment. If we believe in a rules-based international order, in justice, in peace, they are the absolute minimum we must do.