Slovenia Gave A Powerful Speech At The UN Against Genocide And Then Banned Netanyahu From The Country
“We did not stop the Holocaust. We did not stop the genocide in Rwanda. We did not stop the genocide in Srebrenica. We must stop the genocide in Gaza. There are no excuses anymore,”
Slovenia has become the first country in the world to ban Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering the country over his arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Netanyahu and Israel’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant have been wanted by the ICC since November 2024 for war crimes and crimes against humanity over Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
On Thursday, Sept. 25, the Slovenian government announced that it was sanctioning Netanyahu, as it already did by banning far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in July.
Slovenia’s government said on X that its most recent decision aims to send “a clear message to the State of Israel that Slovenia expects consistent implementation of decisions issued by international tribunals and respect of [International Humanitarian Law].”
The move came two days after Slovenia’s first woman president, Nataša Pirc Musar, delivered a powerful address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 23 about the collapse of international law and justice.
In her speech, Musar said that the UN Security Council “is failing to meet the expectations of the world — if it ever has”, with members of the permanent five countries working in their own interests instead of collective security.
She said that some states were putting the ICC to “its greatest challenge ever”, with the ICC’s prosecutors and judges facing sanctions and intimidation, for ensuring justice and international law, while the Genocide Convention risked becoming a relic of the past.
She also pointed to a series of issues, including persistent inequality, faltering progress to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), international law and the Genocide Convention becoming seemingly irrelevant and lack of climate action, asking how world leaders were to explain these trends to the world’s children and the future generations.
“If we, the leaders of this planet, can offer nothing but terror, conflict, pollution, fear, inequalities and war to eight billion people, then we must confront the truth: We are complicit in crimes against our civilization and our planet,” she said.
She called for reforms to the UN Security Council, as well as on world leaders to act to uphold humanity, sustainable development and international law.
“For the sake of future generations, to fulfill our responsibility as human beings, to ensure that we are on the right side of history, we should do the right thing,” she said.
“We did not stop the Holocaust. We did not stop the genocide in Rwanda. We did not stop the genocide in Srebrenica. We must stop the genocide in Gaza. There are no excuses anymore. None,” she concluded.
Slovenia recognized Palestine as a state in June 2024, and in July 2025, become the first European Union country to impose a full weapons embargo on Israel over its genocide in Gaza.
More On Israel's Genocide In Gaza
Kassy Cho
Sofia Hou
Kassy Cho
