Europe's Gaza betrayal has broken the trust of millions of people in the global south | Shada Islam

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

63% : In turn these "change-makers", often facing repressive governments at home, have sought inspiration, support and funding from the EU.
59% : "The EU always presented itself as a normative power mainly concerned with upholding international law and which conditions all of its development aid to the global south on criteria like democratic reforms, human rights and gender equality," says Yasmine Akrimi, a Tunisian researcher on the Middle East.
57% : For years now, the EU has worked to put in place an array of initiatives and "civil society dialogues" in the Arab world and beyond.
47% : I have often been in the room as EU policymakers have taken governments in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to task for violating human rights - and then watched them sign millions of euros' worth of trade and investment deals with leaders of the very same states.
46% : No wonder, when it took EU leaders nearly six months and the deaths of some 30,000 Palestinians including children to call, not even for an immediate ceasefire, but for "a humanitarian pause" leading to one.
42% : The EU is Israel's biggest trading partner, but there has been no response to demands from human rights groups for a suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement, even though it contains a clause that would allow for such action.
41% : What should be of more concern to Brussels is that its Gaza policy has so badly damaged its credibility among pro-democracy and human rights activists in these countries; people whom the EU says it sees as engines of change, fighting on the frontline for equality and justice.
40% : By seemingly giving carte blanche to Israel, the EU has sacrificed hard-won credibility with civil society in Africa, Asia and the Middle EastThe European Union's failure to hold Israel to account for violations of international law in Gaza has blown a gaping hole through its claims to be a values-based defender of international rules, democracy and human rights.
37% : Some may shrug off criticism of the EU in the global south as a hazard of the "geopolitical Europe" that the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has vowed to build.
36% : EU countries continue to sell arms to the Netanyahu government even after its military's bombing raids have destroyed entire families, communities, hospitals and universities and killed humanitarian workers delivering emergency food aid to prevent starvation.
35% : But there are examples too - for instance in its criticism of Russia, Myanmar, China and Pakistan - where the EU has been on the right side of history.
34% : Yet for all the criticism of the carte blanche offered to Israel as it hit back against Hamas following the 7 October attack, I have no difficulty believing that many governments in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will continue to do business with the EU, buying its goods and weapons or, like Egypt and Tunisia, taking EU cash in exchange for tougher controls on migrants.
33% : Borrell flatly rejected the idea that the EU should stop poking its nose into cases of human rights violations in other parts of the world.
32% : EU outrage is often selective.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.