The European Union was built on the ashes of war, founded with the idealistic promise that peace, human rights, and international cooperation would prevent the horrors of the 20th century from ever returning. Yet in 2025, as Gaza burns and its people starve, the EU stands exposed, not as a beacon of human dignity, but as a bloc paralyzed by fear, hypocrisy, and political convenience.

What is unfolding in Gaza is not merely a humanitarian crisis. It is a deliberate campaign of destruction, displacement, and collective punishment. And while Israeli warplanes fly and bulldozers raze what remains of Palestinian homes, Europe issues cautious statements and feeble calls for restraint. These are not the actions of a moral power. They are the silences of a structure more interested in stability than justice.

Europe cannot claim ignorance. Reports of mass civilian casualties, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and systemic starvation have been widely documented. International law experts have called it domicide, others call it genocide. Either way, it is happening under the EU’s watch. And despite having one of the most powerful diplomatic and economic arsenals in the world, the EU has failed to act decisively.

Instead of sanctions, there are arms deals. Instead of suspending association agreements, there are invitations to trade expos. Instead of protecting the vulnerable, the EU has poured resources into managing migration and protecting borders from the very people its policies abandon.

Worse still, EU member states are divided. While Spain, Ireland, and Belgium have called for stronger measures against Israel and recognition of Palestinian statehood, Germany, Austria, and Hungary have taken hardline pro-Israel positions, sometimes going as far as to criminalize criticism of Israeli policy. The result is paralysis. The EU is unable to speak with one voice, and when it does, that voice is usually a whisper.

This is not a failure of bureaucracy. It is a failure of values.

The EU was never simply an economic alliance. It claimed to be a moral project: a peace-driven, rights-based union that would stand as a counterbalance to global power politics. But in Gaza, those principles have been sacrificed. If the EU cannot act when children are bombed in hospitals, when entire neighborhoods are reduced to dust, and when food is used as a weapon, then what is the point of its existence?

Europeans are noticing. Protesters fill the streets of Paris, Brussels, Dublin, and Berlin, not to demand vengeance, but to demand that their governments act according to the very values they teach in schools and commemorate in war memorials. The dissonance between the EU’s foundational rhetoric and its geopolitical cowardice has never been clearer.

There is still time for the EU to choose a different path. It could impose sanctions. It could halt arms exports. It could recognize the State of Palestine and demand an end to the occupation. But these would require courage, and a commitment to principle over politics.

Until then, the EU’s moral authority lies buried beneath the rubble of Gaza, alongside the promises it once made to the world.