Slovenia is always first. Or so say those from other parts of the former Yugoslavia, where the tiny Alpine country is seen as eternally avant-garde. Slovenia was the first republic to break away from Yugoslavia in 1991, and its brief war of independence was relatively bloodless compared to the conflicts that followed in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Even in socialist Yugoslavia, the republic was seen as perennially first: the richest, most socially liberal and most ‘Western’.

Little wonder, then, that Slovenia has emerged as one of the most pro-Palestine countries in Europe in recent years. Some Slovenes view the Palestinians’ cause and quest for self-determination in the light of their own recent history. This sentiment is often attributed to Yugoslavia’s founding role in the Non-Aligned Movement, the group of newly independent states that sought to chart a path separate from both the United States and the Soviet Union.

In 2024 an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana showcased how Yugoslavia hosted the first Non-Aligned summit (1961), gave scholarships to Palestinian students to study at its universities (in the early 1970s, as many as 43% of foreign students came from Palestine) and opened the first Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) office in Europe (1971).

Last summer, Slovenia became the first European country to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Prime minister Robert Golob condemned the fact that ‘due to internal disagreements and divisions, the European Union [was] currently unable to complete this task’. Two years ago, Slovenia recognised Palestine as an independent state. More recently, it boycotted Eurovision over Israel’s participation, and its national broadcaster aired Palestinian films in the time slot allocated for the song contest instead.

Despite Slovenia’s small size – it has a population of just 2.12 million and is roughly half the area of Switzerland – these moves did not go unnoticed in Tel Aviv. (…)

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