The Israeli Government has called on Poland to take “decisive and swift” action against a member of parliament who displayed a swastika on an Israeli flag during a parliamentary debate.
In a post on platform X, Israel’s foreign ministry on April 21 claimed that the right-wing opposition Confederation party MP’s Konrad Berkowicz’s “dubious record includes public support of Nazism.”
“History has shown where racism and anti-Semitism lead, as Poland knows all too well. Such a person has no place in the parliament of democratic Poland. We expect the Polish authorities to act decisively and swiftly,” it wrote in a call for the removal of Berkowicz.
The Israeli post also referenced an older image circulating online that appears to show Berkowicz making a Nazi salute, an action Berkowicz has described as having been taken out of context as it was a “mock salute” and not a tribute to Nazism.
Polish MP Konrad Berkowicz’s dubious record includes public support of Nazism.
History has shown where racism and antisemitism lead, as Poland knows all too well.
Such a person has no place in the parliament of democratic Poland.
We expect the Polish authorities to act… pic.twitter.com/uMciDn6uy4— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) April 21, 2026
Berkowicz has already been fined by the parliamentary authorities the equivalent of one and a half months pay following his unfurling of the Israeli flag with a swastika, an action which was a protest against Israeli actions in Gaza.
An MP in Poland can only be permanently removed from parliament if he/she is convicted of a crime. Propagating Nazism is a criminal offence in Poland.
For a sitting MP to be convicted, though, they must first have their parliamentary immunity removed so that they may face an indictment. Parliament can also suspend members fora limited period of time.
Berkowicz responded on X, rejecting Israel’s criticism.
“You will not dictate to Polish authorities what they should or should not do. Poland is not and will not be your colony,” he wrote, adding that “it won’t be Israel deciding who can sit in the Polish parliament and who cannot”.
The Polish foreign ministry’s spokesman Maciej Wiewior rejected the Israeli demand saying: “it is Poles who elect their MPs, not foreign embassies,”, and adding that Berkowicz has already been punished in parliament and that the public prosecutor is examining the case
Defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz also pushed back against Israel’s intervention saying: “No embassy has the right to say who should be a member of the Polish parliament.”
This spat between Israel and Poland follows in the footsteps of Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski’s clash with Israeli foreign minister over an incident in which an Israeli soldier was seen vandalising a statue of Jesus Christ in Lebanon.
Critics have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of hitting mosques and churches during the conflict in Gaza.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar has apologised for the incident in Lebanon, which sparked global outrage, calling it “grave and disgraceful” and insisting the soldier in question has been punished.
But Sikorski said that while it was right that the Israeli foreign minister had apologised quickly, accountability must go further with “lessons being drawn regarding the way Israeli soldiers are being trained” and he accused Israeli forces of misconduct.
“IDF soldiers themselves admit to war crimes. They killed not only civilian Palestinians but even their own hostages,” he said.
Sikorski was referring to an incident in December 2023, when Israeli troops mistakenly shot dead three of their own hostages who had escaped captivity by the militant group Hamas in Gaza, a case the Israeli military said resulted from serious breaches of procedure.
Sa’ar rejected the accusations, calling Sikorski’s comments “grave, baseless and slanderous”.
Responding on X, the Israeli foreign minister said Sikorski’s remarks demonstrated “profound ignorance and a deep lack of understanding” of military operations as in “every war there are operational accidents”.
Sa’ar claimed that the IDF makes a “constant effort to minimise harm to non-combatants”, claiming that “the ratio of terrorist casualties to non-combatants is better than that of any other Western army”.
Sikorski later hit back, writing on X: “I am obviously not suggesting that IDF soldiers deliberately killed Israeli hostages, but the fact that they did suggests that their battlefield procedures were too loose.”
Poland has since the end of Communism in 1989 been on the whole supportive of Israel’s actions in the Middle East but its official foreign policy is to support a two-state solution that would include the creation of a Palestinian state.
Tensions have also flared up over some Israeli historians and politicians accusing Poles of participating in the Holocaust and demanding compensation for the nationalisation of heirless Jewish property after the war.
