Why Do Only Former Government Officials Protest?

At the beginning of February 2026, 404 former European Union ministers and ambassadors signed a statement condemning Israel for its actions in Gaza. In, part the statement urged the following:

1.”The EU and member states must [aspire] to bring peace  in accordance with long-standing UN principles, resolutions, and international law.”

2. “The EU and member states must reach out proactively to like-minded partners in the Middle East and global south. Only such a robust approach can reestablish the union’s reputation as a force for peace and good in our time.”

3. ”The immediate focus of the EU and the international community should be on reversing the current harsh realities on the ground in Gaza, as well as East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

To accomplish these goals:

1. “The EU and member states’ [efforts must be] robust and prompt diplomatic action. Including launching an immediate time limited dialogue with Israel on the application of relevant provisions of the EU–Israel association agreement.” In other words, threaten Israel’s most favored nation status.

2. “The EU and its member states should desist from membership in the board of peace which … includes an ICC indicted war criminal and whose charter threatens to undermine the UN.”

The statement concludes:

Condemnatory statements have not been backed up by concrete measures. The EU should act firmly against all of those pursuing annexationist agendas and threatening Palestinians inalienable rights of self-determination and undermining the two state solution. Furthermore there must be accountability and no impunity for those from both sides who have committed acts in violation of international law.

Moral Principles and a Conundrum

The moral and ethical principles behind the statement are obvious to anyone who has been brought up to respect the rule of law and the imperative to treat others in a fashion that you would expect them to treat you. It can be assumed that this kind of upbringing is generally what the hundreds of ministers and ambassadors experienced in their youth. By virtue of their recent proclamation, it can also be assumed that this sense of morality, and the importance of the rule of law, still prevails with these important people. However, this assumed moral upbringing on the one hand and, on the other, its persistence now in their post-position status, presents us with a conundrum.

There is little evidence that any of these former government officials pushed for “robust and prompt diplomatic action” warning Israelis of the consequences for their behavior, particularly as to the “provisions of the EU–Israel association agreement.” In other words, to what extent did these former government officials advocate, when in office, eliminating Israel’s lucrative relationship with the EU due to barbaric behavior? To do so while they were in power would seem a logical extension of their moral position both before and after their employment?

The Workplace Factor

The sort of morally challenging situation we are witnessing here is related to the workplace. And, it is more common than realized. Employment implies an unspoken acceptance of an organizational pseudo-morality. This is particularly the case with organizations that are looking for a rationale for cutting moral corners for the sake of alleged organizational success. This acceptance of a certain degree of amorality is embedded in the history of capitalism on the one hand, and the evolution of state authority on the other. Finally, it should not surprise anyone that the cause of organizational success (or perhaps maintaining a lucrative status quo) most often has greater persuasive power than ethics. What are some of these persuasive conditions?

A) In the capitalist world, employment equals sustenance. At a certain level it means a high level of material comfort for an executive and his or her family. It can mean prestige and a sense of authority. It also allows for the carrying of debt, the accumulation of which might tie one all the more tightly to one’s employer.

B) In addition, except for self-employment, there is something of a military spirit to employment per se. In theory at least, you are supposed to develop a sense of loyalty to your employer and the organization. This is particularly so for middle and upper managers. Along with loyalty comes an expectation of following orders. All of this, in effect, stands prior to any consideration of outside morality or ethics. If you do not like what your employer is doing, be it a business or government agency, you might try to protest while on the inside, but as many Goggle technicians have recently found out, the organization will simply fire you. The only thing that might stand in the way of termination is union membership (which is why unions have long been on the chopping block in U.S. society) or the labor laws that have survived in ever weaker form. Still, being fired is a preferable fate to being court martialed.

Thus, economics, and perhaps loyalty, were among the reasons those 404 signatories to the statement condemning Israeli action in Gaza waited till they left office to express their sentiments.

The Rotten Barrel Syndrome 

So, to be employed is to become part of an organizational community that parallels the one that makes up your family and non-workplace circle. For certain, the latter circle narrows your behavioral choices to those found acceptable by your hometown environment. Now, as noted, employment makes you part of an organization that has its own culture and is (usually) a lot more authoritarian—an organization where you are perhaps just one of many. You have become an apple (big or little) in the proverbial barrel.

At this point, your on the job community applies its own pressure to follow the organization’s pseudo-morality. If you find the on the job brotherhood/sisterhood influence congenial it becomes easier to adapt to the organizational version of right and wrong. This also makes one more susceptible to a rotten barrel.

The individuals who have participated in the situation in Gaza and elsewhere have done their deeds within the kind of supportive “rotten barrel” community. The 404 former government officials who find these deeds to be criminal are folks who have stepped away from that sort of organizational community pressure. They are no longer subject to its pseudo-morality. They are out of the barrel.

Conclusion

The Israelis have murdered a lot more than 70,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Roughly nine thousand more have been abused and now languish in the torture-prisons of Israel. Survivors still in Gaza are being purposely deprived of humanitarian aid. All of this in reaction to the admittedly violent incursion of 7 October 2023. That violence was committed by ghettoized people who were in the process of being slowly dehumanized by virtue of long-standing Israeli policy enforced by both their major political parties. Thus, do the victims of a past genocide become themselves the ones unleashing a present genocide.

Do the 404 former government officials, who now feel able to publicly protest Israel’s category of horrors, offer us any hope? If we judge from the impact of past protests, both written and those of citizens in the streets, the answer is no. This is particularly true in the case of the United States. One might recall that just before the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of Americans opposed to the war protested peacefully in the streets of multiple cities. Then president George W. Bush dismissed them as a “focus group.” The claim that “the right to petition” under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution helps keep the government “accountable to the people,” has little basis in historical fact. The same can be said for the impact of petitions, even those of past high government officials, directed toward European governments and the European Union.

[To this depressing state of affairs we have to add the 28 February 2026 illegal attack on Iran by Israeli and US forces. This was done, according to information released by the Omani foreign Minister, right at the cusp of an agreement that would have neutralized Iran’s nuclear stockpile and made the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon impossible. One can take from this the high probability that no opposing demonstration, no petition of ordinary citizens or former state ministers, would have any effect on Donald Trump much less Benjamin Netanyahu.]

What of the symbolic value of such petitions? Petitions like that of the 404 symbolize the ability of both former ministers and ordinary citizens to see beyond narrow nationalism. A narrowness that opens the way for amoral or pseudo-moral rationalizations of endless categories of horrors. One can imagine that at some point those who are the signers of such petitions can reach a tipping point number. For instance, Albert Einstein argued that if one could recruit 2% of a population to the cause of militant pacifism one could prevent their country from going to war. This theory has never been tested. Others have suggested that mass action can be successful if it can mobilize 3.5% of a population.

Perhaps the next time around (if there is one), the 404 former ministers and ambassadors will engage in “robust and prompt diplomatic action” while in positions from which they can impact policy. Wouldn’t that be different! It would certainly create a welcome precedent.

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