Europe must stand without the US – but the latest war in the Middle East shows it has no idea how

The rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy. Europe most urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East. Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government's war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump's obscene plans for a Gaza "riviera" and "humanitarian" initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course. France and Saudi Arabia had planned a conference…