Will Europe boycott Israel?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From Madrid to Brussels, protesters are turning sports, culture, and trade into flashpoints over Israel’s war on Gaza. Europe’s leaders are proposing sanctions and recognition. Is this momentum strong enough to shift power? Or are governments offering small steps to manage unrest while avoiding deeper change?
In this episode:
- Alys Samson Estapé, Organizer, Stop Complicity With Israel
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé and Haleema Shah with Manny Panaretos, Chloe K. Li, Melanie Marich, Kisaa Zehra, Farhan Rafid, and our host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz and Kylene Kiang.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, in Europe, support for Palestine is growing from the bottom up. |
| 0:16.0 | How the people are forcing their elected leaders to take a stand against Israel's war on Gaza. |
| 0:28.3 | I'm Kevin Horton, and this is The Take. Before we continue with today's show, if you're watching us on YouTube or Spotify, please leave us a comment and tell us what you think about this episode and what stories you want us to do next. |
| 0:53.3 | I'm Alice Sampson-Estape. I'm based in Barcelona. I'm part of the coalition |
| 1:00.0 | stock complicity with Israel in Catalonia at a Spanish state level and member as well of the campaign |
| 1:07.3 | Stop the Arms Trade with Israel. So, Alice, let's start off with the newsy stuff, because to be sure we've seen a few |
| 1:14.4 | developments at the governmental level when it comes to Palestine. |
| 1:17.8 | Many countries are recognizing or moving towards recognizing Palestinian statehood this week |
| 1:23.3 | at the UN. |
| 1:23.9 | I state clearly as prime minister of this great country that the United Kingdom formally |
| 1:32.9 | recognises the state of Palestine. |
| 1:36.7 | Canada is officially recognizing the state of Palestine and ramping up pressure for two-state |
| 1:41.8 | solution. |
| 1:42.7 | The Commonwealth of Australia recognizes the state of Palestine. |
| 1:47.5 | And other European states will reportedly follow suit. |
| 1:51.3 | On top of that, the European Commission has just put forward unprecedented measures, |
| 1:55.4 | including proposals to partially suspend trade concessions and target certain Israeli ministers and settlers. So that's real. |
| 2:03.2 | Can you walk us through some of these moves? And do you think they'll have real world effects |
| 2:07.7 | that will represent real progress? So I think the main take is that the pressure that |
| 2:14.0 | civil society is putting is having an effect. So these governments aren't out of the |
| 2:20.7 | blue deciding to recognize the state of Palestine. This is because civil society have been |
... |
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