Pro-Palestine demonstration held in Poland

Hundreds of people took part in a demonstration in Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, on Friday evening expressing support for Palestine and opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Participants held signs saying (in Polish) “End the Holocaust of Palestinians”, “Ghetto Gaza” and “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine”.

A video shows them chanting (in English) “From the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free”. Use of that same phrase – which is seen as a call for Israel to be wiped off the map – this week prompted authorities in Vienna to ban a Palestinian march, reported Reuters.

Many participants in Kraków came from Poland’s Muslim community, which has grown in recent years amid record levels of immigration.

“We are here to show the world that our nation is occupied by Israel,” one participant, Usana, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper. “They took our lands, they took everything. There is a massacre going on in the Gaza Strip now.”

“Every nation that is under occupation has the right to fight. Poland also fought when it was partitioned [in the 19th century],” he added. When asked about reports of rapes committed by Hamas, he said that they were American propaganda.

One of the organisers, speaking to Gazeta Wyborcza, emphasised, however, that “we are not against Jews” and said that “there are many Jews who are on our side and do not accept what is happening in Israel”.

One of the speakers at the march accused the world of hypocrisy for supporting Ukraine after Russia’s invasion but not supporting Palestine.

The demonstration was also joined by Red Front (Czerwony Front), a Polish Marxist organisation. “We support the Palestinians in their fight for liberation,” one of the group’s members, Elena, told Gazeta Wybrocza. “We are against US imperialism, which allows Israel to commit genocide against the Palestinians.”

Kraków’s municipal authorities noted that the demonstration had been properly registered in advance. There were no reports of disorder or violence during the event.

Michał Zajda from the Jewish Social and Cultural Society in Kraków, however, expressed frustration that the event had been allowed to take place. He noted that it had occurred during the Jewish sabbath and on what Hamas had declared to be a “Global Day of Jihad”.

Zajda had appealed to the city not to allow the demonstration to be held, he told Gazeta Wyborcza. But a spokesman for town hall noted that “Poland is a democratic country and everyone has the right to demonstrate, regardless of our private views on a given issue”.

On Wednesday this week, two rival demonstrations – one in favour of Palestine and a counter-protest in support of Israel – took place in the Polish capital of Warsaw, reports news website Onet. The two sides – numbering around 500 in total – were kept apart by police.

After Hamas’ attack last weekend, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, expressed his solidarity with Israel and offered humanitarian support.

Meanwhile, the Polish government has arranged military flights to evacuate Polish citizens stuck in Israel after most commercial airlines suspended operations there.

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Main image credit: Konrad Kozlowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.