Polish soccer fans displayed a banner reading “Israel murders and the world stays silent” at a match featuring a Haifa team earlier this month in Hungary, prompting Israeli fans to respond last week at a rematch with a sign that read: “Murderers since 1939” in reference to Poles.
The incidents, on Aug. 8 and Aug. 14, coincide with a campaign to disqualify Israel from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in connection with its war against Hamas in Gaza, and a separate and tense debate about Polish complicity in the Holocaust. Soccer fans stoned the Maccabi Haifa fans’ bus outside the venue in Hungary, Ynet reported.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki condemned the actions of the Israeli fans but did not address those of the Polish ones. “The scandalous banner displayed by Maccabi Haifa fans insults the memory of Polish citizens who were victims of World War II, including 3 million Jews. Stupidity that no words can explain,” he wrote on X on Friday.
The 1939 banner was displayed at a rematch between the Raków Częstochowa team and Maccabi Haifa in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League. Instead of hosting rivals, Maccabi Haifa played against them in Debrecen, Hungary because of the security situation in Israel. Israel won the first match against Raków but lost the second, leading to its elimination from the Conference League qualifiers.
The slogan was displayed amid ongoing tension between Israel and Poland over the Holocaust, which followed the German Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939. In 2018, the Polish parliament passed a law making it illegal to blame Poles for Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the law, which he and many others in the Jewish world said would limit historical research and freedom of expression on the Holocaust.
Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, which also criticized the law, has identified more than 7,000 Polish Righteous Among the Nations—non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. However, many Poles are thought to have collaborated with the Nazis in the murder of Polish and other Jews.
Last month, unidentified individuals installed a large monument in Jedwabne, at the site of a 1941 massacre in Poland where local residents murdered their Jewish neighbors. The monument includes plaques that falsely blame the atrocity on the Nazis and accuse Jewish Communists of murdering Poles.
The president of the Polish Football Association, Cezary Kulesza, said his organization would complain to UEFA about the Israeli fans’ actions. “Provocations and falsifications of history cannot be condoned. We will urgently appeal to UEFA to take a stance and impose consequences for the scandalous banner and outrageous behavior in the stands during the Maccabi vs. Raków match,” he tweeted on Friday.
UEFA’s Safety and Security Regulations state that the “promotion or announcement [...] of political messages [...] in the immediate vicinity of the stadium is strictly prohibited.” However, in recent weeks, UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, has expressed openness to greater political content at UEFA matches.
On Wednesday, a banner reading: “Stop killing children—Stop killing civilians” was displayed on the pitch with UEFA’s consent before the Super Cup final between Tottenham and Paris St-Germain in Italy. It was widely interpreted as a reference to civilian casualties in Gaza. At the same match, two refugee children from Gaza were featured in the medal ceremony. European football’s governing body said they were a 12-year-old Palestinian girl called Tala and a nine-year-old boy named Mohamed, who had both relocated to Milan for medical treatment.
In an interview on Thursday, Ceferin said that “the issue of Israel’s participation in UEFA competitions is a legitimate question,” a remark that some interpreted as openness to excluding Israel from the federation. Several weeks ago, UEFA sparked controversy by posting about the alleged death of soccer player Suleiman al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” in southern Gaza.
