Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Janša, who entered into office on June 4, vowed to end the previous government’s “support for activist antisemitism,” referencing the lowering on Friday of a Palestinian flag that the outgoing administration had flown.
“The time has come for a responsible Slovenian foreign policy based on facts, Slovenian national interests and international law,” Janša, a pro-Israel leader of the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), wrote on X.
The time has come for a responsible Slovenian 🇸🇮foreign policy based on facts, Slovenian national interests and international law.
— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) June 5, 2026
The politically and economically harmful period of government support for activist anti-Semitism, which was broadly encouraged by commissions from… https://t.co/gtPsyOzm67
Janša was commenting on a Bloomberg news agency report that the Palestinian flag was lowered from Slovenia’s main government building less than an hour after Janša was sworn in as prime minister for a fourth time.
“The politically and economically harmful period of government support for activist anti-Semitism, which was broadly encouraged by commissions from two billion US dollars of laundered Iranian money in the former state-owned bank during the left-wing government, has ended,” Janša added.
Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar, who is a political and ideological rival of Janša and the SDS, had the Palestinian flag hoisted at the Presidential Palace, she announced in response to Janša’s move.
She cited “the genocide against Palestinians” in her statement. The Slovenian president is the country’s head of state, but the position is largely ceremonial with limited authority on foreign relations. An independent, Pirc Musar is an ideological ally of former Prime Minister Robert Golob, a center-left leader who took a critical stance toward Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza during his four-year premiership.
Last year, Slovenia announced a ban on goods from Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Slovenia recognized a Palestinian state in 2024.
Slovenia raised the Palestinian flag on its government headquarters in Ljubljana in 2024, following the government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state.
On Wednesday, Slovenia’s designated minister of infrastructure and energy implied that a top aviation official would need to resign following the refusal of air traffic authorities to allow a scheduled flight from Israel to land in the country.
The minister, Jernej Vrtovec, wrote on X about the incident, which happened last week in the final days of the Golob administration. He later added that the operation of the Arkia line that the flight was part of had been assured going forward.
“The director of aviation should go ahead and prepare the letter,” Vrtovec wrote on X.
On Monday, the ministry’s website listed Tomaž Pečnik as head of the Directorate of Aviation and Maritime Transport, a position he was appointed to last year.
Arkia Flight 6H755, operating in European airspace, was redirected to Zagreb, Croatia, after Slovenian air traffic control denied it permission to land at its intended destination last week.
