European countries may not agree with Israel on the Palestinian issue, but many grasp Israel’s sense of being under existential or territorial threat. Despite the ambiguities in these relations, no European state has adopted a full boycott.
THE ODDITY OF EUROPEAN-ISRAELI RELATIONS
Something odd is happening in relations between Israel and European states. Public opinion in many of these countries is hostile to Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, or simply inimical to Israel’s existence. Yet the governments that represent these publics are often forging close defence ties to the Jewish state. Even those countries that are distancing their security needs from Israel still find themselves requiring some Israeli security input.
This shift in relations calls for explanation. It is not that European governments are becoming more pro-Israel while their populations shift away from Israel. Nor is the answer a simple calculus of interests against values. It is that European governments are becoming more like Israel in their sense of strategic vulnerability that threatens them and the need to think in terms of power.
OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS AT OPPOSITE ENDS OF EUROPE
Finland and Spain, two cases at opposite ends of the European Union (EU) and NATO, illustrate the different directions of these countries. Both countries found themselves confronting versions of the same problem – and choosing almost opposite ways of dealing with it.
Finland is the obvious starting point. Its border with Russia runs for over 1,300 kilometres. During the Cold War, Finland’s policies of neutrality and subservience to the Soviet Union created the unflattering term ‘Finlandisation.’ However, Finland joined the EU soon after the end of the Cold War. Finland then joined NATO in 2023, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine the previous year.
A small country facing a large neighbour, a predicament of which Israel has experience, Finland has built close defence ties with the Jewish state. Finland has proposed to increase the duration of its defence-matériel relationship with Israel, until 2034, twice the length of previous agreements. Around two dozen bilateral defence projects are underway. Israel is now Finland’s second-largest foreign defence supplier.[1] Interestingly, like Israel, Finland compensates for its small population through a strategy of mass mobilisation. Finland maintains a wartime strength of approximately 280,000 personnel, backed by around 900,000 militarily trained citizens in reserve.[2]
For Finland, the possibility of territorial conflict is not theoretical. Its purchases from Israel are significant. Finland acquired the David’s Sling missile defence system for €316 million ($356 million), with an option worth a further €213 million ($241 million). The country is also buying Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and Gabriel subsonic cruises missiles costing hundreds of millions of euros.[3]
Despite these defence decisions, Finnish opinion has not become particularly sympathetic to Israel. Yle reported in August 2026 that a majority of Finns believed that their government should halt the bilateral arms trade with Israel.[4]
For the Finnish government, the defence relationship did not change its mind about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Rather, it required only that its political opposition not outweigh the security requirement. Indeed, on September 8, 2026, Finland joined the U.K. and ten other countries in declaring their intention to introduce, support, or consider national or European restrictions on trade in goods with Israeli settlements.[5] Finland therefore illustrates the central issue clearly: political pressure on Israel can intensify even while strategic defence cooperation deepens.
THE SPANISH RETRACTION
Spain went in the other direction to Finland. The country joined NATO in 1982 and the European Communities (now the EU) in 1986 as part of its democratic transition and departure from the international isolation of the Franco regime. Although Spain faces different security challenges to Finland, it has tense relations with some of its Mediterranean neighbours.
For a time, Spain seemed to illustrate the cynical approach: condemn Israel loudly, then carry on buying Israeli technology because the defence establishment knows it has little choice. There were episodes as of November 2023 that looked like this: as existing contracts and Israeli technology embedded in larger programmes proved harder to disentangle than political rhetoric suggested. Since then, however, Spain has apparently abandoned cynicism for principle.
Spain has chosen to pay an economic and security price for breaking security ties to Israel, although there is also a sleight of hand. Madrid gradually restricted arms trade with Israel. Spain’s Ministry of Defence announced in May 2025 a Plan de desconexión tecnológica (plan for technological disconnection) from Israeli military industry. In September 2025, Spain gave its embargo on defence trade and dual use technology a legal foundation.[6] Testifying before the Senate Defence Committee in February 2026, Secretary of State for Defence María Amparo Valcarce stated that Spain should have zero technological dependence on Israeli military industry.[7]
The costs are considerable. Spain has cancelled or reworked programmes for the Sistema Lanzacohetes de Alta Movilidad (SILAM, High Mobility Rocket Launcher System, which used technology from Israel’s Elbit) and the Spike LR2 (anti-tank guided missile, ATGM, from Rafael). These two deals are worth around €1 billion ($1.13 billion) in contracts and planned investment. The Spanish government also has looked elsewhere for technologies it previously obtained from Israeli suppliers. For tactical communications, for example, Indra (the Spanish defence electronics group) has turned to Finland’s Bittium (the Finnish telecommunications and secure-communications firm) in an agreement that could be worth more than €120 million ($137 million).[8]
For all the rhetoric, Spain still needs Israeli weapons. Domestic politics cannot make those requirements disappear. The changes to the Spike LR2 procurement show that forsaking Israeli technology can sometimes be easier said than done. Spain ‘cancelled’ the purchase of the Spike LR2 in June 2025, after having placed the order in October 2023.[9] This year it has emerged that Spain is considering the purchase of the same ATGM, just from a European supplier in which Rafael has a minority stake of 20 percent. The Spanish government has dressed this up as a desire to avoid exposed supply chains, but the Israeli origin of the weapon is clear.[10]
Spain’s policy has a distinctive historical backdrop. Spain did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until 1986, after decades in which relations with the Arab world occupied a privileged place in Spanish foreign policy.[11] Such a mixed historical inheritance can narrow a government’s room for manoeuvre and make distancing from Israel politically rewarding.
There is a broader geopolitical dimension too. For parts of the Spanish Left, distance from Israel belongs to a longer tradition of anti-Americanism – of suspicion towards U.S. power and a habit of defining European autonomy against Washington whenever the Transatlantic consensus frays. That matters because Israel is not read in much of Europe as simply a Middle Eastern state. Rather, it is bound up with the U.S.-led strategic order. When the Transatlantic relationship diverges, opposition to U.S. power encourages distance from Israel. In some European countries, what exacerbates that feeling is the current perception that Israel and the United States do not care about international law, which reinforces the view of Israel as an extension of the United States.
THE GREEK PARADOX
Yet even in a country that is profoundly anti-American and anti-Israel, strategic fear can sit comfortably with cultural antipathy. Close to the edge of the EU, Greece signed an approximately €3 billion ‘Achilles Shield’ agreement with Israel on 31 August 2026. Under the deal, Israeli systems including David’s Sling, SPYDER (Rafael short- and medium-range interceptors) and BARAK MX (missile defence system) will form part of a multilayered Greek air and missile defence architecture. It is the largest defence agreement in the history of Israeli-Greek relations and one of Israel’s largest defence export deals.[12] There remains considerable public hostility to Israel in Greece, and the Greek ruling party contains politicians with a history of extreme right antisemitism. However, what matters is that Greece’s strategic horizon is shaped by Turkey, and unresolved tensions with that country in the Aegean and Cyprus.
A MATTER OF MORE THAN INTERESTS AND VALUES
The obvious reading of these cases is that these differing approaches represent a familiar European contest between interests and values. Governments need Israeli technology, publics dislike Israeli policy, and governments cooperate where they can, but retreat where they cannot. That interpretation, however, muddles two questions:
First, why does dependence on Israeli capabilities produce open cooperation in some countries and costly substitution in others?
Second, does Europe’s newfound vulnerability change both what governments buy and how some Europeans understand Israel’s strategic predicament?
The first question turns on strategic need and political permissiveness. Strategic need depends on hard security factors, European exposure to a real threat and whether Israel has capabilities that Europeans find difficult to replace quickly, or on comparable terms. Political permissiveness is the room a government has to act on that need. Public opinion matters, but so do coalition politics, institutions, historical commitments, party competition, and the social composition of the electorate. One government may sustain cooperation despite public hostility if security policy is insulated. Another may change course when procurement from Israel becomes politically costly. Opinion polls tell only part of the story.
WHAT VULNERABILITY CHANGES
Europe’s changing strategic environment has another feature: uncertainty about the future of U.S. security commitments and pressure within NATO to augment European defence capacity. Governments are not merely spending more. They are looking for systems that they can procure and deploy quickly, including from suppliers outside the traditional European industrial base. That creates opportunities for Israel. It cannot replace the United States or Europe’s own defence industries, but in missile and air defence, drones, intelligence and other specialised technologies it can supply capabilities that some European states would struggle to develop or replace quickly.[13]
The distinction matters. Buying Israeli systems does not require political support for Israel. A state can condemn Israeli policy, support Palestinian statehood and face strong domestic opposition to Israel while still deciding that a particular Israeli capability is necessary for its own security. Conversely, a government can cut procurement without making the underlying requirement disappear. The question is not whether Europe is becoming ‘pro-Israel,’ but whether the strategic value of Israeli capabilities can outweigh the political cost of acquiring them.
Israel faces a different dilemma. It has a strong economic and strategic interest in maintaining defence exports. That leaves room for European governments to remain politically critical of Israeli policies, while Israel continues to supply capabilities they consider necessary. Strategic cooperation does not require political alignment by either side. Arms exports apparently bring Israel no diplomatic gain.
Vulnerability may also change what a society notices before it changes what it believes. A country that suddenly worries about its own borders, missiles and stronger neighbours becomes more attentive to aspects of another country’s predicament that looked less important when its own strategic environment was benign. That does not make it pro-Israel. It can, however, alter the frame through which Israel becomes intelligible.
THE GERMANY COMPLICATION
Germany is an exception. Public attitudes towards Israel have deteriorated sharply. In YouGov’s June 2025 EuroTrack survey, only 13 to 21 per cent of respondents across Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain held a favourable view of Israel, while 63 to 70 per cent were unfavourable. Israel’s net favourability in Germany stood at minus 44, its lowest level since YouGov began tracking the measure in 2016.[14] Yet Germany is simultaneously building one of Europe’s most consequential defence relationships with Israel. The Arrow 3 missile-defence system reached initial operational capability in Germany in December 2025. After a subsequent expansion the programme is expected to exceed $6.7 billion, the largest defence export agreement in Israeli history.[15] Nearly a century after the Nazi German persecution of the Jews, the Jewish state is protecting the skies over Germany.
German public opinion and German strategic behaviour are travelling in different directions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is part of the explanation: it exposed weaknesses in European missile defence and made Israeli experience in that field immediately relevant. However, Germany also demonstrates why political permissiveness cannot simply be read from an opinion poll. The German state’s historic relationship with Israel, its institutional commitments, its security establishment and the legacy of Staatsräson (the longstanding German commitment to treat Israel’s security as a matter of raison d’État), create space for cooperation that public attitudes alone would not predict. Finland illustrates one route: high security need with manageable domestic resistance. Germany illustrates another: deep strategic cooperation can survive even as public sympathy collapses.
Britain offers a further, still unresolved test. On September 8, 2026, Britain announced an import ban on settlement goods and restrictions on related services,[16] widening its economic differentiation between Israel and the settlements. The question for this argument is whether such pressure remains compartmentalised or eventually reaches defence, intelligence or cyber cooperation. Spain shows that spillover is possible; Germany shows that strategic relationships can remain insulated from hostile public opinion. Britain may help show which model proves more durable.
Norway is a useful exception. It shares a border with Russia, takes the Russian threat seriously, and recognised a Palestinian state in May 2024. Yet Norway has not developed anything resembling Finland’s dependence on Israeli air defence. Norway has alternatives. At the heart of its ground-based air defence is the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), that the Norwegian form Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace worked with U.S. contractor Raytheon to produce. The Norwegian government has invested heavily in expanding NASAMS since Russia invaded Ukraine.[17] Exposure alone, then, does not create dependence on Israel. Finland and Norway can look at the same Russian threat and make different procurement choices because they do not begin with the same industrial capabilities or alternatives. Strategic need therefore combines exposure with dependence.
WHICH RELATIONSHIP?
There are different relationships at play. At the regional level, Israel is a relatively small state facing state and non-state adversaries with vastly greater aggregate territory and population, some of which seek its destruction. From that perspective, Israeli language about vulnerability is hardly imaginary. However, that is not the relationship most Western European publics see when they think about Gaza or the West Bank. Instead, they observe an imbalance of power in favour of Israel, a sovereign military power, with the upper hand over the stateless, occupied Palestinians.
Both descriptions can be true at once, and the argument works only if they are kept separate.
European policy can therefore look contradictory, without actually being so. At the Palestinian level, criticism of Israel can be intense: governments and publics may oppose the conduct of the war in Gaza, support Palestinian statehood, and criticise settlements or Palestinian civilian casualties. At the regional level, however, the same governments may recognise that Israel faces a security environment characterised by hostile states, non-state actors, missile threats, and persistent attempts to undermine its security. Seeing that predicament does not imply political sympathy, much less endorsement, and can coexist with profound disagreement over Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
An example of how a European country acquires strategic sympathy through its newfound vulnerability is the Czech Republic. During a visit to Jerusalem in February 2025, then Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský described Russia to his Israeli interlocutors in one sentence: ‘What Iran is to Israel, Russia is to us.’ The Czech Foreign Ministry reported the remark, and Lipavský added that it was a sentence everyone in Israel immediately understood.[18] No such comparison is needed to justify buying a weapons system. It is an analogy between predicaments, not a transaction between suppliers. That is recognition, not identification or endorsement. One can understand Israel’s fear of Iran without endorsing what Israel does in Gaza or the West Bank. Buying a missile says: you make something we need. Lipavský’s formulation says more: we recognise something of our own predicament in your strategic experience.
In essence, the change may be one of perception more than values. For a generation after the Cold War, much of Western Europe enjoyed in an unusually forgiving strategic environment: borders appeared fixed and territorial war seemed remote. Security came to appear less as a national capacity that might suddenly prove inadequate than as a condition guaranteed by NATO, the EU, and the post-war order. That experience shaped how Europeans looked at countries that spoke obsessively about borders, deterrence, missiles and existential threats. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made that world harder to inhabit. Missile warfare, drones, territorial revisionism and interstate coercion have returned to ordinary European politics, and governments are grappling with questions that seemed almost anachronistic twenty years ago.
None of this requires sympathy. Some European governments now have direct experience that makes part of Israel’s strategic self-understanding easier to recognise. That recognition can remain confined to defence ministries, intelligence services, and foreign-policy elites, and it can coexist indefinitely with severe criticism of Israel. It can even produce the Spanish response: we understand why we need this technology, but the political price of buying it from you has become too high. Need, recognition, and sympathy are different things.
THE LIMITS OF BOYCOTT PRESSURE
The differing approaches of European states also reveal the present limits of boycott pressure. So far, political and public pressure has raised the costs of dealing with Israel, delayed or redirected procurement, and in Spain contributed to an explicit effort at technological disengagement. But it has not produced a general European strategic decoupling from Israel. Whether that remains the case will depend on the evolution of both Europe’s security needs and the political costs of cooperation with Israel.
Popularity and security are each poor guides to European states’ relationship with Israel. Vulnerability has returned, and with it a way of looking at the world that many Europeans had almost forgotten. That may not change what they believe about Israel, but it can change what they notice, and it may change what governments are prepared to buy, defend, conceal or abandon. The relationship will be written country by country, coalition by coalition, and contract by contract. That divergence is what lets the same transformation pull Helsinki and Prague towards Israel, while pushing Madrid away.
Notes
[1] Otso Ritonummi, “Finland quietly extends defence partnership with Israel,” Yle News, August 31, 2026. Ten-year extension of Finnish-Israeli defence-materiel cooperation through 2034, approximately two dozen ongoing projects, and reporting that a majority of Finns believe arms trade with Israel should be halted. yle.fi/a/74-20243763; Yle News. Reporting on Finnish defence procurement from Israel, 2025–2026. Data on David’s Sling, Spike and Gabriel purchases and Israel’s position among Finland’s foreign defence suppliers. yle.fi/a/74-20177004; yle.fi/a/74-20235084
[2] Government of Finland, Ministry of Defence. Antti Häkkänen, keynote address at the NATO Technology event, Washington, 9 July 2024. Figures on Finland’s border with Russia, wartime strength and trained reserve. valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/236553176/minister-of-defence-antti-hakkanen-s-keynote-speech-at-the-nato-technology-event-in-washington
[3] Yle News. Reporting on Finnish defence procurement from Israel, 2025–2026. Data on David’s Sling, Spike and Gabriel purchases and Israel’s position among Finland’s foreign defence suppliers. yle.fi/a/74-20177004; yle.fi/a/74-20235084
[4] Yle News. Otso Ritonummi, “Finland quietly extends defence partnership with Israel,” 31 August 2026. Ten-year extension of Finnish-Israeli defence-materiel cooperation through 2034, approximately two dozen ongoing projects, and reporting that a majority of Finns believe arms trade with Israel should be halted. yle.fi/a/74-20243763
[5] Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (UK) and Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. “Joint Foreign Ministers’ Statement on the Two-State Solution,” 8 September 2026. Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK stated their intention to introduce, support or consider national and/or European restrictions on trade in goods with Israeli settlements. www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-foreign-ministers-statement-on-the-two-state-solution; um.fi/current-affairs/-/asset_publisher/gc654PySnjTX/content/statement-of-the-foreign-ministers-of-canada-denmark-finland-france-iceland-ireland-norway-poland-portugal-spain-sweden-and-the-uk-on-the-two-state-solution.
[6] Miguel González, “Defensa anuncia un plan de “desconexión tecnológica” con la industria militar de Israel,” El País, May 30, 2025
[7] Government of Spain, La Moncloa. “El Gobierno consolida el embargo de armas a Israel y prohíbe importar productos de asentamientos ilegales en territorios palestinos,” Council of Ministers, September 23, 2025; www.lamoncloa.gob.es/consejodeministros/resumenes/paginas/2025/230925-rueda-de-prensa-ministros.aspx. Spanish Senate, Defence Committee. Testimony of María Amparo Valcarce García, Secretary of State for Defence, on the Plan de desconexión tecnológica con la industria militar de Israel, February 11, 2026, Diario de Sesiones del Senado, Comisión de Defensa, No. 602; www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L15/SEN/DS/CO/DS_C_15_602.PDF
[8] Bittium Corporation. Strategic cooperation and technology-licensing agreements with Indra, 2025-2026. The licensing agreement signed in December 2025 is estimated at more than €120 million and enables Indra to develop and manufacture sovereign tactical-radio systems. www.bittium.com/investors/stock-exchange-press-releases/; www.bittium.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Bittium-Financial-Statement-Bulletin-2025-presentation.pdf
[9] Teresa Medrano, “Spain cancels a contract for anti-tank missiles built by an Israeli subsidiary”, Associated Press, June 3, 2025 apnews.com/article/spain-israel-missile-contract-cancellation-441fb6373134b4c28e068e05c59ee537
[10] “ El Ministerio de Defensa de España falta a la verdad sobre el MELLS: no es un sistema ajeno a Israel,” Seguridad y Defensa Noticias, February 19, 2026 seguridadydefensanoticias.com/2026/02/19/el-ministerio-de-defensa-de-espana-falta-a-la-verdad-sobre-el-mells-no-es-un-sistema-ajeno-a-israel/
[11] Government of Spain, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “España-Israel, 30 años de historia compartida,” 17 February 2016. Official account noting that full diplomatic relations between Spain and Israel were established only in 1986. www.exteriores.gob.es/es/Comunicacion/Noticias/Paginas/Noticias/20160218_MINISTERIO1.aspx. Maria Dolores Algora Weber. “Spain in the Mediterranean: between Spanish-Arab Relations and Recognition of the State of Israel,” Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, nos. 79-80, 2007. Historical analysis of the priority assigned to Spanish-Arab relations and the long delay in normalising relations with Israel.
[12] Israel Ministry of Defense. “Israel and Greece have signed the massive ‘Achilles Shield’ Agreement,” 31 August 2026. Approximately €3 billion agreement for a multi-layered Greek air-defence architecture. www.mod.gov.il/en/press-releases/press-room/israel-and-greece-have-signed-the-massive-achilles-shield-agreement
[13] NATO. “The Hague Summit Declaration,” 25 June 2025; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “Global arms flows jump nearly 10 per cent as European demand soars,” 9 March 2026. NATO records the allies’ commitment to increase defence and security spending and meet new capability targets; SIPRI reports that European arms imports rose 210 per cent between 2016–20 and 2021–25, notes uncertainty over US commitments as a driver of demand among European NATO members, and identifies Israel as their third-largest supplier in that period. www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_236705.htm; www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2026/global-arms-flows-jump-nearly-10-cent-european-demand-soars
[14] YouGov. Matthew Smith, “Net favourability towards Israel reaches new lows in key Western European countries,” June 3, 2025. EuroTrack survey in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. yougov.co.uk/international/articles/52279-net-favourability-towards-israel-reaches-new-lows-in-key-western-european-countries. Full results here ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Eurotrack_IsraelPalestineConflict_May25_w.pdf
[15] Israel Ministry of Defense. Material on Germany’s Arrow 3 programme and expansion of the agreement, 2025-2026. Arrow 3 reached initial operational capability in Germany in December 2025; the expanded programme is expected to exceed $6.7 billion. www.mod.gov.il/en/press-releases/press-room/germany-salutes-arrow-weapon-system-project-bundeswehr-cross-of-honor-awarded-to-senior-israel-mod-officials
[16] Associated Press, “U.K. sanctions Israeli West Bank settlements, setting up clash with U.S.,” 8 September 2026, via NBC News: www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/uk-announces-trade-ban-israeli-west-bank-goods-burnham-huckabee-rcna596536; and The Times of Israel, live coverage of Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s statement to the House of Commons, 8 September 2026: www.timesofisrael.com/denouncing-ethnic-cleansing-in-west-bank-uk-announces-trade-ban-with-settlements.
[17] Government of Norway, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Norway recognises Palestine today,” 28 May 2024. www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new/norway-recognises-palestine-today/id3040890/. Government of Norway, Ministry of Defence. Announcements on expansion of Norway’s NASAMS air-defence capability, 2024. www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/ny-kontrakt-sikrer-rask-tilgang-til-nytt-luftvern/id3047291/; www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/historisk-styrking-av-norsk-luftvern-ny-kontrakt-pa-flere-nasams-batterier/id3080123/
[18] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. “Minister Lipavský Held Talks in Israel,” 27 February 2025. Official account quoting Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský: “What Iran is to Israel, Russia is to us.” mzv.gov.cz/jnp/en/issues_and_press/press_releases/minister_lipavsky_held_talks_in_israel.html