The US is enabling mass slaughter in Gaza – Europe can act to change that | Alexander Hurst

The EU's influence over Netanyahu is limited but it could pressure an electorally vulnerable Joe Biden to stop the war

Europe is flanked by two grotesque wars involving mass slaughter (Gaza is, after all, just 578km away from Cyprus), waged by far-right fanatics harbouring either imperial or colonial intentions, and for whom war has become inextricably tied up with holding on to political power. One war implicates European security directly; the other is a shot at projecting its voice in the world. On both, the EU must start acting like a foreign policy superpower - not just independent of the US but also capable of nudging its hand.

It's striking how much images of Gaza and Mariupol look similar. Bombed-out and destroyed, as broken as the bodies of the thousands of civilians killed beneath Russian bombs in one place, and Israeli bombs in the other. Each has its particular horror - in Ukraine, the legions of abducted and transferred children, in Gaza, the now rampant risk of mass hunger confronting nearly 2 million people.

Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist