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International Poll Shows Strong Support for Arms, Energy Embargo on Israel
"The people have spoken and they refuse to be complicit," said one campaigner. "Across continents, ordinary citizens demand an end to the fuel that powers settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide."
Aug 07, 2025
Large percentages of people in five nations want arms, fuel, and machinery embargoes on Israel in response to its obliteration and starvation of Gaza, a poll published Thursday revealed.
The survey—which was conducted last month by Pollfish for the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and endorsed by Progressive International—queried people in Brazil, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, and Spain about whether their governments, fuel companies, weapons makers, and heavy machinery manufacturers should stop, reduce, continue, or increase business with Israel.
Nearly two-thirds of Spanish respondents said they strongly support or support their government taking action "to reduce trade in weapons, fuel, and other relevant goods to pressure Israel to end its military actions in Gaza." In Greece, 63% back an embargo, while 35% oppose it. Sixty percent of Colombians, 58% of South Africans, and 48% of Brazilians strongly or somewhat support punitive sanctions on Israel.
Conversely, 27% of Brazilians said they do not support or strongly oppose an embargo on Israel, while 20% of South Africans, 14% of Colombians and Greeks, and 12% of Spaniards feel the same.
Support for ending or reducing weapons transfers was strong in all five nations, with 76% of Colombian respondents, 75% of Spaniards and Greeks, 66% of South Africans, and 59% of Brazilians favoring such action.
A majority of respondents in all five countries also said that companies providing arms, fuel, or heavy machinery to Israel "should be held responsible for how those products are used in Gaza."
📊 New poll: People across the world say companies selling weapons, fuel, or heavy machinery to Israel should be held accountable for how those products are used in Gaza.🇪🇸 76%🇬🇷 71%🇨🇴 70%🇧🇷 62%🇿🇦 60%#EnergyEmbargoNow #NoFuelForGenocide@progintl.bsky.social
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— Global Energy Embargo For Palestine (@palenergyembargo.bsky.social) August 7, 2025 at 2:33 AM
"The people have spoken and they refuse to be complicit," Global Energy Embargo for Palestine campaigner Ana Sánchez said in a statement.
"Across continents, ordinary citizens demand an end to the fuel that powers settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide," Sánchez added. "No state that claims to uphold democracy can justify maintaining energy, military, or economic ties with Israel while it commits a genocide in Palestine. This is not just about trade; it's about people's power to cut the supply lines of oppression."
The poll was published 670 days into Israel's U.S.-backed assault and siege on Gaza, which has left at least 226,600 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving amid increasingly deadly famine as Israel blocks aid from entering the embattled enclave.
The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—is moving ahead with plans for the "full conquest," reoccupation, and ethnic cleansing of the strip, which U.S. President Donald Trump wants to transform into "the Riviera of the Middle East."
Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations. Among the countries in the survey, Colombia—which severed diplomatic ties with Israel in May 2024—Spain, and Brazil have formally joined or signaled their intent to join South Africa's case.
The ICJ also found last year that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
"What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people is not war, it is genocide," Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in February 2024 shortly after recalling his ambassador to Tel Aviv. "If this isn't genocide, I don't know what is."
On Thursday, European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera—who is Spanish—told Politico, "If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning."
"What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed, and condemned to starve to death," Ribera said. "A concrete population is confined, with no homes—being destroyed—no food, water, or medicines—being forbidden to access—and subject to bombing and shooting even when they are trying to get humanitarian aid. Any humanity is absent, and no witness[es] are allowed."
Of the surveyed nations, all but Greece support an arms embargo on Israel. The other four countries took part in last month's Hague Group emergency ministerial conference in Colombia, which was organized by Progressive International and ended with the publication of a joint action plan for "coordinated diplomatic, legal, and economic measures to restrain Israel's assault on the occupied Palestinian territories and defend international law at large."
"The message from the peoples of the world is loud and clear: They want action to end the assault on Gaza—not just words," Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler said in a statement accompanying the new survey's publication.
"Across continents, majorities are calling for their governments to halt arms sales and restrain Israel's occupation," Adler added. "That's why states are coming together through the Hague Group to take concrete measures toward accountability. It's time for others to follow their lead."
Meanwhile, a survey published Tuesday by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that 8 in 10 Israeli Jews "are not so troubled or not at all troubled personally" by "the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza."
Eight people, including a child, starved to death in Gaza that day, on which local officials said that more than 80 Palestinians were killed by Israel's bombs, bullets, and blockade.
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Union-Led General Strike Over Austerity Brings Greece to Standstill
"Last week, the government committed €25 billion to defense spending," noted one observer. "Militarization is not just prepping for war, it is austerity."
Apr 09, 2025
A union that represents more than two million private sector workers in Greece said Wednesday that labor unions had "obvious" demands that pushed them to bring the country to a 24-hour standstill: "Pay rises and collective labor contracts now!"
The country's two main unions representing both the public and private sectors called the strike, which canceled all domestic and international flights for 24 hours starting at midnight Wednesday; left buses, trains, and other public transport operating for only part of the day; and eliminated ferry service and other public services for the day.
The unions are demanding a return to full collective bargaining rights, which were suspended in international bailout agreements during Greece's financial crisis from 2009-18.
"Before 2012, half of Greek workers had collective wage agreements," Yiorgos Christopoulos of the General Confederation of Workers (GSEE) told Al Jazeera. "But there was also a national wage agreement signed by employers and unions which meant more than 90% of workers enjoyed maternity leave."
Since the bailouts, Christopoulos said, "the government has put individual contracts at the heart of its policy. But individuals are powerless to bargain [with] their employers."
As the country relied on international bailouts worth about 290 billion euros ($319 billion) to stay afloat, wages and pensions were eroded.
Now, Kathimerini reported in January, three out of 10 Greeks in urban areas and more than 35% of people in the country as a whole are spending more than 40% of their income on housing and utilities.
Greece has the European Union's largest rate of people spending at least 40% on housing and essentials.
On top of that, said GSEE on Wednesday, "prices have gone so high that we're buying fewer goods by 10% compared to 2019."
"Workers' incomes are being devoured by rising costs, with no government response," said the union.
Author and political ecologist Patrick Bresnihan noted that the austerity policies remain even as the government approved 25 billion euros ($27 billion) for defense spending last week.
The government, controlled by the conservative New Democracy Party, recently increased the monthly minimum wage by 35% to 880 euros ($970). But Eurostat, the E.U.'s statistics agency, found earlier this year that the minimum salary in terms of purchasing power in Greece was still among the lowest in the bloc.
Officials have pledged to again raise the minimum wage to align more closely with the rest of the E.U., but the average salary is still 10% lower than in 2010.
The Civil Servants Confederation (ADEDY), is also demanding the return of holiday bonuses, which provided workers with two months' pay before the financial crisis.
One trade unionist, Alekos Perrakis, told Euronews that corporate profits are growing as working people continue to struggle.
"We demand that increases be given for all salaries, which aren't enough to last until even the 20th of the month," said Perrakis. "We demand immediate measures for health, for education, for all issues where the lives of workers are getting worse as the profits of large monopolies continue to grow."
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'Love Wins Again' as Greece Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the legalization—a first by a Christian Orthodox nation—"a milestone for human rights."
Feb 15, 2024
Greece on Thursday became the first Christian Orthodox, 16th European Union, and 37th overall nation to legalize same-sex marriage, a move one rights group called "a huge step forward for LGBTQ+ people" in the Balkan country.
Members of the Hellenic Parliament from across most of the political spectrum came together in a rare moment of consensus, defying opposition from the country's influential Orthodox Church and voting 176-76 with two abstentions to pass the landmark reform.
In addition to granting same-sex couples marriage rights, the measure also opens the door to adoptions and confers parental guardianship rights to both parents in same-sex partnerships.
"Greece is proud to become the 16th E.U. country to legislate marriage equality," Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece's center-right prime minister, said on social media after the vote. Mitsotakis had promised to approve marriage equality legislation after his reelection last year.
"This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today's Greece—a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values," he added, drawing some scornful replies highlighting the nation's treatment of asylum-seeking migrants.
During Thursday's parliamentary debate, Mitsotakis said that "people who have been invisible will finally be made visible around us, and with them, many children will finally find their rightful place."
Stella Belia, the head of same-sex parents' group Rainbow Families, told Reuters that Thursday's vote was a "historic moment" on a "day of joy."
"It makes life much, much easier for many people, and it protects children that have been living in a state of precariousness," Belia said in a separate interview with The New York Times.
Historian Nikos Nikolaidis said the vote marked "a very important step for human rights, a very important step for equality, and a very important step for Greek society."
Meanwhile, Archbishop Ieronymos, who heads the Greek Orthodox Church, said legalization will "corrupt the homeland's social cohesion," a position shared by the far-right Elliniki Lysi party.
Outside the Hellenic Parliament in Athens, proponents of marriage equality celebrated the vote.
"I'm very proud as a Greek citizen because Greece is actually—now—one of the most progressive countries," Ermina Papadima, a member of the Greek Transgender Support Association, told Reuters.
"I think the mindset is going to change," Papadima added. "We have to wait, but I think the laws are going to help with that."
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