On Lost Trust in European Leadership

Published on Mar 5, 2026, filed under politics. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

As a fellow European, I wonder what you think about our warmongering and genocidal associates (which they shouldn’t be), the United States and Israel, and their leadership.

But I wonder more if you’ve reached a point, too, at which you’ve lost trust in our leadership on this continent.

I’m not talking about countries like Hungary here, where at least the government only appears to be in it for the money—certainly not European solidarity.

I’m also not talking about countries like Spain, which is one of few European countries that seems to have a heart and a spine, at least to take some action against and speak some truth to Israel and the United States (cf. the Gaza genocide).

No, I’m talking about the leadership we have in the European Commission and in the largest member states.

Let me give a few examples.

De Facto Genocide Support

First, there’s the ignoring of and even support for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, on whose land Israel has founded its nation (a historical fact that’s not nearly as present as it should be). For a historical overview, Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance is an insightful book.

Germany ignores Palestinian colonization and genocide even though, given that you cannot be for one and against another genocide, that betrays its lesson of the Holocaust. (Because of this, I believe German remembrance culture is dead, and so is Germany’s collective moral compass broken.)

It’s similar for France, Italy, and the UK (as Europeans by geography). Instead of sanctioning and disassociating from Israel, they’re supplying arms.

Double-Standards

Second, there’s the injustice of double-standards. How often has Germany alone said that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” even though no one challenges that? But Germany denies Palestinians this right and even criminalizes peaceful solidarity, and Germany denies Iran that right, too, after Iran was attacked during negotiations. They’re not alone: Many European leaders have made similar statements, condemning not Israeli and American attacks but Iran’s counter-attacks, which Iranian leaders had even announced ahead of time.

Leaving International Law to Die

Third, it’s European nations that seem responsible for international law to be dead. The US is in symbiosis with Israel and currently under no leadership that would deserve the name. As these openly disrespect and sabotage international institutions, it’s on the large European nations to enforce international law—and they don’t:

No European nation took any action asked for by the Genocide Convention. They seem to have excused this, rather, regularly challenging the fact of a genocide or by pointing to it being challenged (if you ask me, a crime in itself, like seeing someone beaten to death and refusing to call the police suggesting that technically, the person still moved). But if a country has a standard either as vague or as high as never to recognize a genocide—they should not have signed a genocide convention in the first place. They don‘t look like they’re acting in good faith.

Then, Benjamin Netanyahu as well as other Israelis are sought by international arrest warrant. Netanyahu is known to have crossed the airspace of countries that do say they recognize the International Criminal Court. None seems to have taken action to prohibit crossing—or to force the plane to land and arrest Netanyahu. Law is useless if it’s only enforced selectively, if at all.

Unconditional Support for Israel

Fourth, the unconditional support for Israel. Let’s start this differently: You probably know the idea of unconditional love—a truly deep and beautiful concept. This would be one unconditional thing for humans to learn.

Unconditional support for Israel, which literally means to ignore UN resolutions, ignore the rights and the will of the Palestinian people, tolerate apartheid, accept a genocide, then allow for Israel to annex parts of Lebanon and more parts of Syria, which in turn means to ignore the rights and will of Lebanon and Syria, to then condone attacks on Iran, again, and to ignore the rights and the will of the Iranian people—

This is not unconditional support: It is a moral void culminating in forfeited sovereignty.

There cannot be any person or any country to be supported “unconditionally,” because doing so means to become an accomplice once they commit crimes.

Complicity

This brings us to the point:

A leadership—here the leadership of several European nations and of the Union itself—is hard to trust, is difficult to place faith in, if it effectively supports genocides, if it’s not working with fair principles, if it does not apply the law to everyone, and if it turns into an unreflecting accomplice to two military states that so very clearly are the main and arguably only destabilizing forces in their region (Israel) and in the world (the United States).

And if it is the case that this is only because of Israel and the United States exercising pressure, perhaps owning compromising material on our European leaders—then any respectable leader would step down and remove that dependency, so that their nation and that the union is not compromised further.

Because that’s what Europe seems to be: compromised.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)