Following President Biden’s cue, Europeans are progressively turning their backs on Israel, including threatening to deny arms and imposing sanctions against Israeli individuals.  

A famous Talmudic passage about what happens to moss when cedars catch fire is often translated as, “If the mighty have succumbed, how shall the weak emerge unscathed?” Similarly, as Israel’s staunchest supporter, America, goes wobbly, it is only natural for Europeans to gang up on the Jewish state. 

While Washington so far maintains its military support of Israel and shares with it the goal of eradicating Hamas, the tone from the White House is turning sharply critical. “Too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children,” President Biden said Monday. 

Hearing this, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, had one conclusion: “Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed,” he said at Brussels. 

The Israel Defense Force has killed 10,000 Hamas fighters since the October start of the Gaza war, its chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said Tuesday. Taking Hamas’s casualties number of 27,000 Palestinian deaths at face value, that is a ratio of less than two civilian deaths for each combatant. That ratio is far lower than the average of less than nine to one that the United Nations says is the world-wide norm in urban combat.  

Yet, the meme of “too many innocent civilians” killed in Gaza is now widely accepted. This week a Dutch court ordered the government of the Netherlands to stop supplying F-35 parts to Israel, arguing they might be used in violation of international law. The IDF does not use the advanced American-made fighter jet in Gaza. Also, as the court order arrived during Prime Minister Rutte’s visit to Israel, the government announced it would fight the ruling. 

Meanwhile, though, the governments of Spain, Belgium, and Italy announced on Tuesday that they were considering ending arms sales to Israel. In reality, Israel sells more arms to Western Europe — especially since the start of the Ukraine war — than the other way around. Announcements of intentions to impose arms embargo are more declarative than harmful for the Gaza war efforts.

Yet, they point to a souring mood spreading across the globe. Israelis have long expected as much of Europe or the United Nations, but less so from America. Under internal pressures, Washington increasingly seeks to mitigate its support of Israel by pointing out its aversion to some Israelis.   

France announced Tuesday that it is banning 28 West Bank settlers from entering the country. “These measures come as violence perpetrated by settlers against the Palestinian population has increased in recent months,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, which did not name the sanctioned individuals. 

The Paris announcement followed one from London on Monday imposing sanctions against “extremist Israeli settlers” who are, it said, “threatening Palestinians, often at gunpoint, and forcing them off land that is rightfully theirs.” 

The French and British sanctions followed America’s. Last week the Department of State  announced a presidential executive order to impose sanctions against four West Bank settlers, citing “acts or threats of violence against civilians, intimidating civilians to cause them to leave their homes, destroying or seizing property, or engaging in terrorist activity.”

The Israeli court system often punishes violent settlers. The internal security agency, Shabak, employs an elite unit dedicated to investigating and preventing Jewish terrorism against Palestinians. Washington reportedly declined to share details of the allegations against the four sanctioned settlers with Jerusalem, in what amounts to a no-confidence vote when it comes to the Israeli justice system. 

Mr. Biden is under increasing pressure from the press and an ever-growing number of Democrats to end, or at least curb, his support of Israel. “Palestinians in Rafah Describe a ‘Night of Horror’ During Israeli Rescue”: That was the New York Times headline on the day that two elderly hostages were freed in a daring military operation in Gaza. 

Mr. Biden’s partisan supporters increasingly accuse Israel of committing war crimes. “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food,” Senator Van Hollen said Monday in a speech. “In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true — that is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals.”  

Mr. Biden, he added, “must take action.” Any wonder Europeans and countries across the globe are turning away from the short-lived and qualified sympathy they expressed toward Israel following the initial shock of the October 7 atrocities?