Idle on genocide, idle on wanton wars, Europe deserves every bit of Trump's humiliating bullying

A quick glance at the balance sheet of winners and losers of Trump and Netanyahu’s unilateral war on Iran places Europe on the top of the ‘losers’ list. Europe was not consulted about a war that would cost the continent dearly.

While almost every European household feels the brunt of the war through soaring gas and petrol bills, Trump bragged on his Truth Social on March 12, that "The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money"; all while ignoring the simultaneous suffering of ordinary Americans.

The impact on Europe extends to fertilisers, shipping, inflation, and insurance costs, not to mention the looming prospect of an Iranian refugee crisis. Adding to Europe’s losses is Moscow’s gain from the global gas shortage, particularly after Trump lifted sanctions on Russia’s gas as a ‘quick fix’ to stabilise prices. Russia has, thus, scored another round against a frustrated EU, breaking Europe’s collective pressures and sanctions over the war on Ukraine.

Europe is now sandwiched between pressures from both the south and the north. In a world of more pragmatic politics and balanced decision-making among assumed allies, a greater European say in this American/Israeli war is a must.  

Trump’s arrogance toward the EU is a direct result of the timid policies that have characterised EU leaders’ dealings with him since his first term in office. Whether on the Russian front or in the Middle East, reckless Trumpian decisions are having immediate repercussions for Europe.

A pattern of bowing to Trump’s policies has eventually led to the current marginalisation of the continent. Bullying and coercion were met with a timid response of appeasement on multiple fronts, from the imposition of blanket 10% tariffs on the EU and the rest of the world to the transformation of the NATO alliance into a transactional one based on paying for protection.

This trend continued with threats against Greenland and Danish sovereignty and the exclusion of the EU from critical talks with Putin over Ukraine. Thus, neither the launch of this war on Iran nor Europe’s sheepish response is new.

Specifically regarding the current conflict, one could trace the origin of this catastrophe back to Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018. European members of that agreement failed to collectively stand in the face of American unilateralism, despite their own conviction regarding the practicality of the deal for both Europe and Iran.

The run-up to the war on Iran clearly pointed to Trump’s course of action, pushed and manipulated by Netanyahu. No serious European effort was made to avert the imminent war; a brief look at the recent past, with its fresh and bitter experiences, should have served as a warning of the coming calamities.

One does not need expert analysis to see how the current war is uncreatively connected to a chain of previous disastrous conflicts involving similar pretexts, similar conduct, and similarly high costs for all parties - including Europe. The story remains the same: American intervention creates chaos, American troops (and presidents) eventually depart, and Europe (and maybe others) are left to pick up the pieces and suffer the consequences.

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In the aftermath of American-led wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, Europe felt the brunt of the fallout. The issue of immigration (and consequently rising racism) alone provides solid evidence: according to official statistics, Europe has received around 250,000 Afghan asylum seekers since the invasion.

Since the collapse of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent chaos, including ISIS's control of parts of the country in 2014, cumulative data from Eurostat and UNHCR, Europe has received approximately 1.45 million Iraqis fleeing their homeland. Furthermore, American inaction during the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime contributed to prolonging a crisis with millions more Syrian refugees ending up in Europe, while far fewer from these nations ever reached American shores.

If Iran, with its 93 million people and diverse ethnicities, disintegrates as Israel ultimately hopes, previous waves of migration may look like small figures by comparison. While it must be stressed that the peoples of the Middle East and their futures are the primary victims of these devastating wars, the emphasis on the cost to Europe here is a central part of this article’s focus on European humiliation and inaction vis-à-vis reckless American politics.

Europe is also losing ground on the front of values wherever America is involved. Most EU governments, with the exceptions of the likes of Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, were scandalously complicit in the Gaza genocide, following America’s lead and backing of Israel.

Despite the massacre of tens of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli army and the total destruction of the Gaza Strip, many EU member states continued to supply Israel with arms, mirroring American policy. The EU stood shamelessly on the fence while Trump continued to attack the ICC and punish its judges and their families over the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

Though the daily killing of Palestinians, averaging five per day, continued after the so-called ceasefire in October 2025, the EU remained idle. By mid-February, reports had counted more than 1,600 Israeli violations of the American-brokered ceasefire, which killed more than 603 Palestinians, have of them women and children. It took the EU more than four months to issue even a mild condemnation of these violations, with only Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia condemning them individually.

Moreover, the EU shied away when Trump created the so-called "Board of Peace," practically bypassing the UN and defying international norms by offering this Board as an alternative to established international organizations.

The EU has exhibited the same carelessness regarding Iranian civilians in the current war. While Ireland and Italy have condemned the killing of at least 165 students at a girls’ school in the city of Minab by American/Israeli attacks, the EU has failed to issue a collective denunciation. The about 1,500 Iranian civilians killed by American and Israeli attacks up until the time of writing appear unworthy of European attention or condemnation.

On a larger scale, the EU has said nothing about the flagrant illegality of the war, indirectly endorsing American and Israeli unilateralism at the expense of international law. The fact that the war was launched and conducted without Security Council approval is simply being ignored.

An inactive EU that accepts being a punching bag for Trump’s (and Israel’s) policies continues its downward journey toward irrelevance in global politics. Some could argue that such a timid approach is merely a contingency meant to contain a moody, bullying, and unpredictable American president, and that once his term concludes, more active European engagement will return.

The danger, however, is that by then, a new pathway of "trumping" Europe and others will have already been charted.

Future American presidents may be tempted to simply follow suit, adhering to a new baseline drawn by the inward, America-First nationalist discourse and strategy set across the Atlantic and fed by waves of right-wing ideologies and religious fanaticism.

Without a collective and conscious pushback, such a line could continue to move in all directions - dictating Europe’s limits of action, consolidating its tameness, and further eroding European agency.

Khaled Al Hroub is Palestinian academic and author of Hamas: A Beginner’s Guide, and Hamas: Political Thought and Practice.

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