Eurovision Israel

[Daysgo]

Think Spain, Norway, Ireland etc are right to not take part in Eurovision as Israel are allowed to take part . Russia was banned due to murdering innocent civilians in Ukraine. But apparently it's ok for Israel to do the same and murder Palestinian children... I do not know what kind of world we are living in

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I do vote for other contestants as well if they are any good.

But you've already decided you're voting for Israel without them even having a song yet. You are part of the problem.

Russia were not expelled for “murdering innocent civilians in Ukraine”, they were expelled for illegally invading a sovereign state.

Can you explain why you didn’t say that? I mean, I know why but I’d like to hear you say it.

Proper lolling at Kosovo being given credibility if they are allowed to participate in EV.

NB. I think Kosovo should be recognised.

I think it's unfortunate that Eurovision fans have taken it over and made it something other than it originally was, with the competition's consent of course. The point was to bring people together with music and a competition between composers via their TV companies. Politics wasn't involved eg Spain was a dictatorship and welcomed in. No flag waving. I'd prefer the countries who want to make it political excluded themselves.

I think there either will not be a contest this year or it will go ahead on reduced numbers and be a farce (which let's face it, it has been one for a long time anyway). They will not kick Israel out for fear of being accused of anti-semitism. Even if the unfair voting practices prove to be true, they will still be too scared to do this. So I think it will be heavily reduced numbers (with the UK still participating, but coming 25th still even though there are only 15 entrants 😁)

I didn't watch last year. I'm just bored of the format, the controversy and attention seeking of the entrants. Even the final is far too long with too many entrants.

Oh come on, our own governments do the same.

Stop being one sided

I am delighted Israel is in
They were attacked on OCt 7 and responded
I hope they win it

Does Ireland's 'bizarre' love in with Palestine and 'hatred to do with anything to do with Israel have some sort of romanticism towards a United Ireland. It seems totally illogical and miss informed to equate Northern Ireland and Irish unity with Palestine and Palestinians to me. Why do people on the left of Irish politics see this as some kind of 'justification' or moral equiv ency to virtue their own ends.

Seems like 49% of readers don’t agree with UN, amnesty international and other relevant world renowned & respected organizations? Mumsnetters always seem to know best!

Israel is now a genocidal pariah state.

As such, they should have been banned from Eurovision.

This.

They were attacked horrifically. Their response murdering children, etc has been horrific.

I think the UK should back out too.

Leave Israel and their dodgy tactics in isolation.

Yeah probably.

what used to be a fun night, albeit with political/tactical voting, is now just a reminder of how shite the works us.

very sad 😞

Meanwhile if Israel had been thrown out it would probably have all settled down again. What a shame.

I think Israel would have sued and the sponsor would have sued and not covered the event. So it wouldn't have settled down.

Moroccanoil apparently have a clause in the agreement that Israel has to be a participant and they have a deal to sponsor on that basis.

Eurovision are financially struggling and possibly would not have survived that.

Just don’t let non-European countries take part in Eurovision, so it’s a geographical decision not a political one. Really bloody simple.

The big difference between Russia and Israel that seems to be passing a lot of posters by is that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation, whereas Hamas, supported by numerous Palestinian civilians, attacked Israel without warning and murdered over a thousand people and took hundreds more captive - some of whom they then killed in cold blood.

Hamas could have stopped the war months and months ago if they'd agreed to hand over the hostages. The blood of thousands of Palestinians is on their hands, but they've played a blinder with their propaganda.

Belgium are taking part.

Bloody hell, @RedToothBrush, that’s really significant and not in a good way.

This is why they couldn't kick Israel out last year because technically they were within the rules as they stood.

Tbh after Malmö, they should have reviewed the rules. Malmö was a fucking car crash in how they handled everything to do with Joost Klein, who has a disability and had contracted breaks from filming in his contract as a result. His disqualification was an absolute travesty and a total stitch up because he wasn't happy how the organisers were failing to protect the other contestants from arro but Israel were getting gold carpet treatment. The security was a farce. They had none whilst the Israeli contest had a bigger security detail than the British PM (I've seen both first hand).

It eventually came out there was no case to answer after Joost had been put through police interview, lost his lifetime dream of appearing in the final and had been kicked off in disgrace.

Then several other contestants after the show said how bad it had been and the voting was a bloody travesty. But next to no changes were made for 2024 apart from a commitment to treat the contestants better. There was no attempt to deal with the issues with the Israeli delegation and their behaviour.

Then last year the farce which was the Israeli government sticking their oar in to stir it all up again was outrageous. I was getting adverts telling me to vote for them on my social media. I was like "Wtf, this is wrong. This isn't about a song contest. This is about straight up, state sponsored propaganda". And that made me actually really pissed off.

I went to Malmö. The atmosphere was terrible. It was like being stuck in the middle of someone else's domestic argument. I didn't want to go last year as a result of what happened and I think that was the right call.

For me this isnt about Israel v Palestine as such. This is about the organisers failing to deal with the problem of outrageous behaviour by the Israelis who have used the song contest as a propaganda machine for two years and how this has been at the expense of many of the other participants.

The EBU still hasn't really grasped this is the issue in many respects.

It's got fuck all to with wanting to support Palestine for many Eurovision fans and everything to do with poor management of the song contest and how it's been exploited by the Israeli government.

They could have just entered a song, but it's really not been the Israeli agenda for the last couple of years. That's my beef. If they wanted to enter a song and just be part of things then it wouldnt have been anywhere near the same issues in the ways they have transpired.

This should never have got to this point.

Last year they got very very close to complete disaster. Had Israel won the contest, it would have killed the competition stone dead.

The EBU clearly hasn't been able to attract other sponsors either. I believe the deal with Moroccanoil was due to end in 2024. So naturally, extending it to 2025 was really bloody smart. And then they did the same again this year! (So two rolling extra years rather than being tied by a contract they couldn't get out of - then they signed another deal for another year with this shit show hanging over it).

One of the problems is other sponsors won't want to touch it because of Israel's participation too.

So the EBU have made a pile of rods for their own back throughout when they could have made alternative decisions.

The decision of a couple of the countries to withdraw (particularly the Netherlands) needs to be seen through this lens rather than purely through the lens of supporting Palestine for these reasons too.

It's not necessarily about support for Gaza. It's about the EBU allowing Israel to throw it's weight around and the Israeli government using Eurovision to push it's agenda rather than Israel just participating in a non-political way which it could have done. And the EBU has left itself vulnerable to this when it didn't need to through some of the commercial decisions it's made. It's fucked in the head. I just can't fathom the series of decisions that have lead us here.

I fail to see how it will resolve itself at this year's contest if I'm honest.

Do you really, honestly believe that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians started on the 7th October? How very convenient.

OP the simplest way to register your protest is not to tune in. Or lobby the BBC but I'm not sure that the British public would support a boycott and the BBC should respect their views.

@RedToothBrush thank you for such in depth insights. Although I’m not generally a fan of EV, I’m (professionally) a sound engineer with good knowledge of the EBU, I had no idea about the political machinations behind this contest and what you write is pretty bloody grim tbh.

👏
Thank you so much, @RedToothBrush, for taking the time to write such an informative and intelligent post.

I knew you were a Eurovision regular and put in the hard yards on analysing and attending, and I’m not surprised you’re fucked off with it. I’m gutted it’s all come to this. I’ve watched it (or bits of it) since I was in primary school in the late 1969s/1970s, from B&W television onwards.

I wonder what the future will hold.

I also wonder if Australia is (or will be) ruing the day it signed up for this.