By: Tzirel Rosenblatt

The 2025 International Defense Industry Exhibition (MSPO) in Kielce, Poland — one of Europe’s premier showcases for military and defense technology — was disrupted on Wednesday when two pro-Palestinian activists hurled red paint at the booth of Israel’s Elbit Systems, one of the country’s leading defense contractors. The pair, a man and a woman, were filmed waving Palestinian flags and shouting in Polish as they released a foul-smelling substance in the vicinity of the exhibit, before being detained by security personnel on site.

 

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 The attack, though swiftly contained, drew sharp concern from Israeli and Jewish organizations, who have warned that such incidents highlight a disturbing trend of politicized harassment and aggression directed at Israeli institutions across Europe. According to a report that appeared on Thursday at The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), the episode comes at a time when Israeli cultural and business representatives are facing a surge of physical disruptions, often cloaked as political protest but with undertones of intimidation that verge on outright antisemitism.

MSPO has long been considered one of the world’s top venues for military insiders, bringing together defense firms, security agencies, and government delegations from dozens of countries. The exhibition’s organizers describe it as “one of Europe’s and the world’s most important events, targeted at defense industry business insiders, military decision-makers, and experts.”

Elbit Systems, a key player in Israel’s defense sector, has traditionally been a prominent participant. Its presence in Poland reflects the close defense ties between Warsaw and Jerusalem, particularly in areas of avionics, drones, and advanced battlefield technology. Yet, as JNS reported, Israeli firms attending international defense expositions are increasingly becoming flashpoints for anti-Israel activists.

According to the information provided in the JNS report, the protesters in Kielce not only disrupted Elbit’s exhibition space but also sought to turn the international spotlight on their cause by staging the attack during peak hours, ensuring that media and industry representatives were present to witness the spectacle. Their use of red paint was clearly symbolic, meant to evoke accusations of “blood on Israel’s hands” — a rhetorical tactic that Israeli officials and Jewish advocacy groups have denounced as a modern-day blood libel in political disguise.

This was not the first time Elbit Systems has been in the crosshairs of radical anti-Israel campaigners. As JNS has frequently documented, the company has been subjected to a relentless campaign of harassment by pro-Palestinian organizations across Europe.

In the United Kingdom, the group Palestine Action — which British authorities have since designated a terrorist organization — launched what amounted to an anti-Elbit crusade beginning in 2020. Their first attack occurred on July 30 of that year, when activists vandalized the London headquarters of Elbit Systems UK with green paint and anti-Israel graffiti reading “Shut Elbit down” and other slogans. The following morning, members of the group illegally occupied the offices.

By 2024, the group had intensified its actions, staging near-daily demonstrations, vandalism, and break-ins at Elbit sites across the UK. Their activities were not only disruptive to Elbit’s business operations but also created a climate of intimidation for employees and associates. According to JNS, these actions were part of a wider strategy to delegitimize Israel’s defense industry abroad by portraying it as complicit in alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The targeting of Elbit has not been confined to the UK. In Sweden, in April 2025, a Gothenburg court sentenced four teenagers for their involvement in an October 2024 shooting attack on Elbit Systems’ offices in the city. Although no injuries were reported, authorities concluded the assault was a deliberate attack on an Israeli target. The court’s judgment, as cited by JNS, underscored how anti-Israel activism in Europe has in some cases crossed the line into outright violent extremism.

The attack in Kielce is part of a wider surge in assaults targeting Israeli representatives in Europe, including artists and cultural figures. Just days earlier, Israeli singer and composer David D’Or was assaulted with red paint during a performance at Warsaw’s National Opera.

As The Algemeiner recently reported, D’Or was in the midst of singing the Hebrew prayer “Avinu Malkeinu” when a protester splashed paint across his face and clothes, creating a scene that he described as hauntingly reminiscent of the horrors of October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas launched its devastating cross-border attack into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people.

“In the middle of the prayer, as I was praying for a good year and for peace in the world, I closed my eyes, when suddenly I felt a cold spray on my face,” D’Or wrote on Instagram. “I opened my eyes to see bright red paint, resembling blood… The violinist was deeply shaken and thought acid had been thrown on us.”

The symbolism of these attacks — red paint as a stand-in for blood — reflects a deliberate effort by anti-Israel activists to frame Israel as uniquely culpable in global conflicts, thereby stigmatizing both its military presence and its cultural representatives abroad.

Observers note that while many of these actions are cloaked in the language of human rights and “anti-occupation” protest, they increasingly take on characteristics of antisemitic agitation. JNS has repeatedly emphasized that attacks on Israeli businesses, cultural institutions, and even individual performers contribute to an atmosphere in which Jews worldwide are stigmatized for the actions of Israel, regardless of context.

The incident involving Dr. Qasim Arkawazy in Belgium — a physician suspended earlier this year for antisemitic social media posts, including grotesque cartoons of Jews as vampires — demonstrates how anti-Israel sentiment often overlaps with crude antisemitic stereotypes. As JNS noted in its reporting on Arkawazy’s suspension, these are not isolated incidents but part of a disturbing trend of anti-Jewish rhetoric spilling into professional and public life across Europe.

That both the Elbit attack and the assault on D’Or occurred in Poland — a nation with deep historical scars from the Holocaust — is not lost on observers. Poland today is home to one of the most significant Jewish cultural revival movements in Europe, with events such as the Singer’s Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture drawing thousands each year, as was noted in the JNS report. Yet it is also a site where anti-Israel activists appear to feel emboldened to stage theatrical disruptions.

For many in the Jewish community, the imagery of Jews once again being singled out — whether in the medical files of a Belgian hospital, on the concert stage of a Jewish singer, or in the exhibition halls of an Israeli defense firm — evokes echoes of older patterns of exclusion and targeting.

The immediate fallout of the Kielce attack may be limited, with security personnel responding quickly to detain the assailants. But the broader implications for Israel’s participation in international expos are more troubling. As the JNS report indicated, Israeli firms, which rely on such events to secure contracts and partnerships, may find themselves forced to adopt heightened security protocols or even reconsider their level of participation.

Polish officials have yet to issue a formal statement on the incident, but observers expect diplomatic discussions between Warsaw and Jerusalem to emphasize both Poland’s responsibility to safeguard international exhibitors and the wider concern that Poland could become a staging ground for anti-Israel theatrics.

The Kielce incident underscores how activism against Israel has metastasized in recent years, moving beyond peaceful protest into direct disruption and, in some cases, outright violence. As JNS reported, Elbit Systems has become a lightning rod for such activism precisely because of its role in Israel’s national defense — a role that many in Israel and its allies view as existential, especially after the trauma of October 7.

At the same time, the spillover into cultural spheres — exemplified by the assault on David D’Or — suggests that this is not just about defense contracts but about delegitimizing Israel’s very presence on the world stage. The red paint, thrown both at a corporate booth and a concert stage, is meant to stain not just individuals but the image of the Jewish state itself.

The challenge, as Jewish leaders and Israeli officials have noted, is to ensure that democratic societies draw a clear line between legitimate criticism of governments and the intimidation of individuals or companies based on nationality. For Israel, the events in Poland are yet another reminder that its battles are fought not only on the front lines of Gaza or Lebanon but also in the cultural, diplomatic, and commercial arenas of Europe.