David Cronin
The Electronic Intifada / April 23, 2026
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, served a cocktail of dishonesty and farce this week.
“Europe is the biggest supporter of the Palestinian people,” she said on Monday.
The next day, the EU’s governments demonstrated just how big their support is by once again declining to hold Israel accountable for its genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.
One million EU citizens have signed a call to withdraw trade privileges from Israel. Rather than take that basic step, the EU’s governments have imposed more sanctions on Iran, the target of aggression by Israel and the United States.
Diplomats working under Kallas certainly cannot be viewed as the biggest supporters of the Palestinian people.
A document I obtained through a freedom of information request illustrates that more than two years after the Gaza genocide began, the Israel lobby is still writing the script which key Brussels officials follow.
Hélène Le Gal, head of the Middle East division in the EU’s diplomatic service, appears particularly willing to have the script written for her.
The document shows that Le Gal has agreed to be a host of a “strategic dialogue” organized jointly by the diplomatic service and the pro-Israel group called the European Leadership Network (ELNET). Scheduled for 12-13 May, the event will feature “30 high-level policy and opinion makers – 15 from the EU and 15 from Israel,” says the invitation for the event.
Le Gal agreed that the invitation could be issued in her name, just requesting “tiny tweaks,” according to email messages exchanged between ELNET and her colleagues at the diplomatic service.
It is instructive that Le Gal and her entourage sought no more than “tiny tweaks” to the invitation.
The original draft states that the diplomatic service “presents the EU’s positions and interests to the government of Israel, with the overall goal of advancing relations between the EU and Israel.”
While that phrasing doesn’t appear to have encountered any fundamental objections, at least one of Le Gal’s colleagues felt it was too reductive. An edit was proposed so that it would be clear that the service works “across the globe,” including on EU-Israel relations.
Nobody seemed bothered about the stated goal of “advancing relations” with a state carrying out a genocide.
Red line ?
The discussions at the May event will be “entirely” off-the-record, the invitation says. As usual, the public must be kept in the dark about matters of demonstrable public interest.
Such matters, according to the agenda for the event, will include the “Board of Peace” set up by US President Donald Trump, Israel’s 2026 elections, and Turkey and Qatar’s “rising influence.” Iran and the “future of Arab-Israeli normalization” will be on the agenda, too.
Another topic to be examined is the financing of “dual use technologies” under Horizon Europe, a major scientific research program.
As the term “dual use” refers to applications with both civilian and military application, we can make an educated guess about the likely content of such discussions. It will almost certainly be argued that the EU should finance the development of Israel’s future weapons.
In all probability, the well-dressed participants will not be crude enough to underscore that Israel covets more weapons so that it can wipe out Palestinian families and destroy their homes.
Any absence of crudity should not be interpreted as squeamishness by Israel’s advocates.
The European Leadership Network has no qualms about teaming up with figures who can be regarded as “controversial” – for want of a better euphemism.
Earlier this year, it arranged for Eyal Hulata to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels, as the document obtained under freedom of information rules shows.
Hulata may not be a household name in Europe. But he is well-known in certain circles: For 23 years, he was part of Mossad, the agency responsible for spying and assassinations.
Because of other commitments, Hélène Le Gal “unfortunately cannot receive” Hulata, an email message from her office stated. There is no suggestion that she expressed any displeasure with Mossad’s activities when her ELNET chums inquired if she could meet Hulata.
Israel’s new death penalty law has been portrayed as some kind of red line for the EU.
Yet the death penalty bill was already being considered by the Knesset – Israel’s parliament – for a few months before finally being formally adopted at the end of March. The EU-Israel “strategic dialogue” scheduled for May was prepared as the law neared approval.
The unavoidable conclusion is that some of the most senior figures in the Brussels bureaucracy have no red lines. They just have red carpets, which they roll out whenever Israel’s advocates ask them to do so.
Update:
Following publication of this article, I finally received a reply to a request for comment from the EU diplomatic service.
An EU spokesperson said that “ELNET originally scheduled the strategic dialogue for 13 May 2026 but ELNET [subsequently] proposed to postpone the event.”
I had asked whether Israel’s death penalty law had prompted EU diplomats to have second thoughts about cooperating with ELNET and similar groups supporting the Israeli state. In reply, the spokesperson said, “As ELNET events present good opportunities for the EU to publicly express the EU’s position regarding the Middle East, this would have been a good occasion to raise our concerns, including on the death penalty law.”
David Cronin is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada; his books include Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel and Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation
