The United States and Iran have concluded a peace accord. Nevertheless one battlefield stayed active and nearly derailed the entire process last weekend when Israel persisted with strikes inside southern Lebanon, crossing Iran’s declared threshold, while anticipating a response that failed to materialise. The conflict Washington seeks to close is not the one unfolding on Europe’s immediate border.

No dispute exists over Israel’s legitimacy as a state or the principle of Jewish self-determination. A dispassionate assessment of regional realities nevertheless indicates that Europe and Israel’s current leadership no longer pursue identical objectives across the Middle East or retain the aligned interests that once underpinned cooperation.

An election alone may not resolve the gap.

The Knesset scheduled its dissolution for May, with polls expected by autumn. Yet Israel’s perception of its security challenges extends well beyond Benjamin Netanyahu and his current ministers. Any successor administration could alter rhetoric without narrowing the underlying strategic differences.

Israel’s frontier advances northward

Once Viktor Orban’s opposition ended with the change in Hungary’s government, EU foreign ministers on 11 May imposed sanctions on violent settlers, targeting three individuals and four West Bank organisations. Only three people received designations.

This step followed a year after the EU’s own diplomatic assessment identified signs that Israel had violated the human-rights provisions of the Association Agreement.

Contrast that response with developments along Lebanon’s southern border.

Over one million residents, representing a fifth of the population, have been forced from their homes and roughly 40,000 dwellings have been destroyed. Israeli forces have advanced as far as the Litani River, marking the largest incursion in a quarter-century and issuing evacuation notices beyond that line.

The result is a cleared corridor under foreign military control inside an independent country.

Officially described as a buffer zone, the arrangement on the ground amounts to occupation with a steadily shifting frontier.

A NATO member recast as future adversary

The immediate territorial pressure forms only the closest edge of a broader pattern. Netanyahu’s coalition includes ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich who advocate resettlement and annexation. Under their influence policy has moved from defending existing lines to extending control across Gaza, parts of Syria and now southern Lebanon.

Israeli leaders view the moment as a historic opening to reshape the regional map. Europe has no obligation to endorse that project.

Attention now turns to the next designated rival. With Iran weakened by recent strikes that eliminated its supreme leader, Israel has begun identifying a replacement. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett first stated publicly in February that Turkey now fills the role previously occupied by Iran.

By spring the rhetoric had escalated to direct insults, including defence minister Israel Katz labelling President Erdogan a paper tiger while Israeli and Turkish aircraft operated in close proximity over Syria, raising the prospect of direct confrontation.

Turkey’s foreign minister accuses Israel of deliberately seeking a fresh adversary and assigning Ankara that role.

Turkey remains a NATO member, albeit a challenging one, and continues to anchor Europe’s southern flank. Redefining an alliance partner as a threat effectively asks Europe to regard one of its own members as a potential target. Brussels has yet to address the implications openly.

Ambition capped at minor measures

Why restrict action to three settlers? Because proposals carrying greater weight were blocked. Spain, Ireland and Slovenia proposed sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich personally, yet Germany and Italy prevented agreement. Suspension of the trade provisions within the Association Agreement has likewise been set aside indefinitely by the same pair of member states.

After removing Orban as the most visible obstacle, Europe discovered that resistance ran deeper than a single veto.

The remaining proposals therefore stay modest. As analyst Alberto Alemanno recently noted, the most ambitious step under discussion involves banning imports of settlement goods, valued at roughly 230 million euros annually according to Israeli figures and representing a negligible fraction of EU economic output. Even that measure faces uncertainty over whether it can secure majority approval.

The discussion has therefore narrowed to procedural questions surrounding restrictions on citrus imports.

The upper limit of what Brussels contemplates remains far below the scale of developments on the ground. When EU leaders convene on 18 June, diplomats anticipate statements of concern without further concrete steps.

Critics sometimes note that scrutiny appears one-sided. Hezbollah bears responsibility for drawing Lebanon into the present conflict, and Israel confronts genuine security challenges along its northern frontier. Neither fact is contested. The relevant question concerns Europe’s consistency.

A union that spent four years constructing a detailed case against Russia over maritime violations, infrastructure attacks and disregard for sovereignty cannot selectively ignore comparable breaches elsewhere while claiming to uphold international norms.

In the same period, Europe answers the occupation of a neighbouring state’s territory with three individual designations and the phrase heavy-handed.

Europe does not need to rupture ties with Israel. It does, however, need to abandon the pretence that sanctions on three settlers together with arguments over fruit imports constitute an adequate policy while a border advances northward and a NATO ally is repositioned as an adversary. The two sides no longer share the same strategic goals, and an election in Jerusalem is unlikely to restore alignment.

Divergence among partners occurs regularly. Denying its existence does not.