This article, dated May 26, 2025, is excerpted from Patrick Le Hyaric’s weekly letter. Click here to read the full letter for this week, and here to subscribe to it..
What more do they need? On a television programme on May 16, Israeli MP Zvi Sukkot declared: "Everyone has got used to the fact that hundreds of Gazans can be killed in one night – the whole world doesn't care." This is neither a saddened observation nor a call for reason. It is a carte blanche for, as this MP insists, "continuing the war and triumphing "
He is thus providing the after-sales service for the strategy of the sinister Netanyahu, who is rolling out the plan announced on May 5, aiming for "total control" of the entire territory of the Gaza Strip and the displacement, or even deportation, of its two million four hundred thousand inhabitants.
"We are engaged in intense and large-scale fighting in Gaza and we are making progress," Netanyahu confirmed a few days later, promising "to act in such a way that no one can stop his army. "
A murderous determination confirmed by his Finance Minister, Smotrich, announcing that Israel was "destroying everything that remains of the Gaza Strip.".
In fact, anyone who looks at a map of the Palestinian enclave for a few moments will notice that the dark colour indicating the degree of annexation covers almost the entire area. What then is needed to stop the butchers' arm?
What more is needed by Western leaders, endlessly churning out their talking points on democracy, international law, and the litany of words emptied of meaning and substance, designed to cover with their vague discourse what international justice calls a "risk of genocide"?
Faced with such a "risk," it is despicable that the President of the French Republic defers to historians. His role is to act to prevent it. To do nothing is to be an accomplice to a bloody war of eradication.
What more is needed than this permanent nightmare, its infernal cycles of a deluge of Western bombs on destitute, starving populations, without drinking water, without possible care or hygiene, deprived of sewage systems, exiled multiple times, living amidst their homes reduced to hills of broken concrete, earth, rubbish, and waste? What more is needed than this blockade that inexorably pushes thousands of children, weakened by tenacious hunger, towards death?
What more is needed to stop the criminals who sleep in comfortable beds in the heart of their villas in Tel Aviv or in the territories stolen from Palestinians in the West Bank?
What more is needed ? No Western leader respects the decision of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, already facing charges in his own country for corruption. Do they bear in mind that their own conscience is dying on the altar of these crimes and massacres?
No other noise will be able to cover them!
What more is needed by these European leaders, puffing out their chests with their letterheads proclaiming "our values"? Now is the time to respect them. Now is the time to say that "our values" are indeed democracy and respect for international law and human rights. Their credibility depends on it.
As a consequence of respecting Article 2 of the association treaty between the European Union and Israel, which presupposes "respect for human rights and democratic principles," a decision must be made to suspend sine die all cooperation with the State of Israel.
This is easily possible, since this agreement officially expired last January.
We can therefore immediately cease to apply it and decide to renew it only after a peace process, recognition of Palestine's territorial integrity, and respect for the commitment to a state for the Palestinian people. This was, moreover, the primary motivation for this association agreement, following the so-called Oslo process.
Seventeen countries have finally called for a "re-examination" of this agreement. An important step has therefore been taken under pressure from the movement for justice and peace, in which young people are at the forefront, as well as solidarity organisations and UN agencies.
However, we cannot wait for interminable procedures that buy time for the Israeli executioners, who care little about their country's hostages held by Hamas forces.
Furthermore, this free trade agreement, which grants Israel the most favourable status for a non-EU country, has been supplemented by other cooperation agreements in the telecommunications, research, and technology sectors. Associated with the Galileo programme (geolocation) and Erasmus (student exchanges), Israel has exported approximately 17 billion euros worth of goods, machinery, chemical and pharmaceutical products, and computer operating systems to Europe.
These treaties must also be immediately denounced..
With the "Horizon Europe" programme, which funds research and innovation, Israel appears to have developed new drones in violation of European regulations that prohibit such funding for war technologies. What are European leaders, so quick to lecture the entire world on "their values," waiting for?
In fact, they respect few values. Do they truly have any? They primarily defend interests. Those of multinationals. The President of the European Commission had already negotiated gas contracts in late 2023. However, the gas field in question is located off the coast of Gaza and, until further notice, belongs neither to the Israeli state nor to Israeli or American oil majors. The aristocratic President of the Commission has still not uttered a word to condemn the actions of Tel Aviv's far-right government. She has not even criticised the decision to ban the distribution of food and humanitarian aid.
This is where the so-called "values" are sinking. It is therefore up to the peoples to continue pushing, to uphold the Palestinian cause and international law.
Ireland and Spain have announced they are suspending all exports of military equipment and ammunition to Israel. What is the French government waiting for to do the same? It can and must suspend all bilateral agreements between our country and a government that will be prosecuted for crimes of war, crimes against humanity, and presumed genocide..
Gaza has become a multi-laboratory. It is testing not only the acceptance by Euro-Atlantic powers of a far-right pushed to its paroxysms, but also their alliance for dehumanisation, attempts to destroy UN agencies, the collapse of international law, the privatisation of military security forces and international aid, the violation of territorial sovereignty and borders, as well as the monopolisation of spaces. In short, it is the laboratory of a world of atrocity and brutality against civilisation. Against this world, we must rise up in a thousand possible ways!
Popular action, from research centres and universities to ports, must now loudly assert these necessities in conjunction with the entire ongoing movement to end all bilateral security, military, and commercial agreements. It is urgent to cease these complicities that serve the eradication of a people.
What more is needed by Western governments, equally devoid of empathy, humanism, and ethics, losing their honour and the little credibility they had left in the tomb of Gaza?
To what extent can they, shamelessly, accept these floods of blood flowing over the lands of Gaza, these assassinations and crimes, the organised famine, and the destruction of healthcare systems? Every day, they boast of imposing sanctions against Russia, but they remain silent on their impunity towards a power that is just as belligerent and criminal. In the name of what and with what weapons is Israel waging all-out wars in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and now Syria?
Capitalist Western nations must stop entrusting the Tel Aviv government with the role of henchman for their desires for domination. Big Western capital, seeking to expand its sphere of conquest over fossil fuels, water, pharmaceuticals, and the military industry, is pushing for the construction of the "Greater Middle East," within which "Greater Israel" would play a predominant role. This proves that international capital has no qualms about having the work carried out by a far-right power which, to achieve its ends, will exploit Israeli workers of all categories even more. The workers of Western countries have absolutely no interest in these projects that make them the foot soldiers of a merciless economic war. They too need peace and justice. Together with Israeli and Palestinian workers, they need to gain control over their labour, productions, and institutions.Their sovereignty cannot be complete if one of the peoples, the Palestinian people, cannot choose how they want to live alongside Israelis. If they are not given the possibility to build their state based on the borders defined in 1967 and to establish their institutions. This goes hand in hand with the means to guarantee security for both Israel and Palestine.
We must listen to and hear the warning cry of former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon: "The massacre of Palestinians by Israel stems from a messianic, nationalist, and fascist ideology." This is as severe as it is clear. Who will call this former general an antisemite?
We are at a formidable turning point. Popular action must be directed towards the President of the Republic and European institutions so that they genuinely act. What is being played out in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine is a way of seeing and building the world: Either that of barbarity and the negation of international law, or that of humanity, of a common world of equality to be built together with respect for sovereignties, histories, geography, and universal values. Gaza therefore concerns all of us, beyond our opinions. Allowing Gaza and Palestine to live alongside Israel engages our humanity and its future!
Illustration image: "Images from Gaza war 2023-2025. The return of displaced Palestinians from the south to the northern Gaza Strip", photograph from January 29, 2025, by Jaber Jehad Badwan (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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