Israeli Eurovision: how low can you go?

[Redebs]

Israeli entry in Eurovision song contest is likely to be a song called 'October Rain' sung by trans-identifying 'Eden 'Golan'.

My previous thread was deleted for pointing this out.

The really good advocates for Palestine would be protesting for Hamas to surrender immediately and for a peace keeping force to take over until a new non-terrorist government can be formed so the war can stop and aid can get in, not giving terrorist groups legitimacy and bullying and intimidating a young girl on the world stage.

If that's your response to the repeated bile that poster's been spewing then all I'll say is don't presume to think you know for one minute who I do or don't listen to. I've engaged with loads of decent pro-Palestine posters on here and elsewhere. I've spent most of my adult life criticising the Israel govt. But if you think I want to have anything to do with a movement that has a massive antisemitism problem, which is causing a huge amount of distress and is fucking scary quite honestly, then actually do you know what, I have nothing more to add. It's not even enough for us to explicitly state we're against Israel's actions, we've now got TO LISTEN more too. I've been on here for ages and believe you me, I've been listening.

I’m sorry- I really didn’t express myself very well. Apologies.
I didn’t mean YOU have to listen more … I just meant that many posters on here are decent and reasonable and worth listening to but are unfortunately being drowned out by anti semitic extremists.

Those are chess boards

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13409487/Real-Eurovision-winner-British-voters-showed-werent-intimidated-pro-Hamas-mob-Israels-courageous-singer.html

Also - the poster that you were referring to is not someone I would listen to. And I understand why you were upset if you thought that was what I was suggesting 😞

Eden got the second highest public votes which tell us everything about the Pro-Israeli sentiment and a big thumbs down for the disgusting protests about her entry.

This was a triumph for right-thinking people generally.

@Limesodaagain

Eden got the second highest public votes which tell us everything about the Pro-Israeli sentiment
Or people liked her song.

I think you have done a great job of demonstrating why Israel should not have competed at Eurovision because you and many others have politicised it. You and I am sure many other Israelis, including the Israeli government, view her success as approval for their campaign in Gaza which is a lot more than just a song contest which many on here claim was all it was and Israel should be there.

So which is it a song competition or a platform to highlight Israeli support in Gaza?

Oh dear. @Dulra , how does responding to calls to ban Israel from Eurovision make it Israel / pro-Israelis faults it's been politicised? Surely you can see that those calling for the ban in the first place are the ones politicising it? Like, I know you really, really hate Israel but surely you can see that it didn't start with pro-Israelis responding? Generally, you respond to something. A response isn't the initial action.

And it's got literally fuck all to do with Gaza which is the whole fucking point - we want it not to be politicised which is why Israel should have been allowed to compete despite what's going on in Gaza. Not because of it. You're trying to, once again, imply that someone who is pro-Israel is automatically pro whatever is going on in Gaza, which multiple people have said for months now isn't the case. We are pro Israel's right to exist and to be in a fucking singing competition. Stop twisting and manipulating words to suit your narrative of choice.

So to answer your delightfully posed question - it's a singing competition but it was nice to see that despite the BS we see online and at the marches, there are actually quite a lot of people who don't want to eradicate Israel, which is nice to know.

The voting was clearly political.
But to understand if Eden Golan won so many votes due to popular sentiment - we would need to know the type of detail we probably won’t get to see. For example - how many votes for her where bulk votes from the same address? There were tweets on X suggesting people use all 20 votes for her, which I didn’t see for other singers.

How does voting for her compare to votes for other singers? Where they more likely to get votes spread out through many more individual households?

Just as Russia was banned from a singing competition, I think any country apparently actively committing war crimes (such that even its closest allies clearly think it is) should be banned. Either that, or Russia should have continued to take part. There is nothing more political than banning Russia but not banning Israel. It’s a joke to claim Eurovision is not political. Any stance either way is blatantly political. You can’t have a competition between countries that is not political.

"There were tweets on X suggesting people use all 20 votes for her, which I didn’t see for other singers."

The reason you didn't see this for other singers is because of the people you choose to follow on social media. It is not a true reflection of what's actually going on in the world. Social media shows you what you want to see. I thought everyone was aware of this, but I guess not. So hopefully you've learned something new today 👍🏻

All of this!

My post wasn't addressed to you it was addressed to the poster that clearly stated the following:
Eden got the second highest public votes which tell us everything about the Pro-Israeli sentiment

And it's got literally fuck all to do with Gaza which is the whole fucking point - we want it not to be politicised which is why Israel should have been allowed to compete despite what's going on in Gaza.
I really wish that was the case but even Netanyahu has made it about Gaza and this was the main reason why I was so uncomfortable with Israel competing because I was worried any support for the Israeli song would be used to justify actions in Gaza and it has.

So to answer your delightfully posed question - it's a singing competition but it was nice to see that despite the BS we see online and at the marches, there are actually quite a lot of people who don't want to eradicate Israel, which is nice to know.
The vast majority of rational minded people don't and never have wanted to eradicate Israel they just don't want Israel eradicating Gaza!!!

For what it is worth I think the mud slinging from both sides on this thread is pathetic and I think the carry on over the weekend from both sides at the Eurovision also pathetic. I think the EBU handled the whole thing terribly and fueled the hate in my opinion. I think it clearly demonstrates that the Eurovision has had its day, it was always political but in the age of social media it has become toxic and this year it was Israel other years it was the UK and maybe next year it will be some other country. I don't think it serves anyone well to continue with a competition that just emboldens hate and causes divisions between nations.

Russia are banned for breaking EBU rules because their broadcasters are not independent from their government. Israel is not banned because their broadcaster has not broken EBU rules as they are independent from the democratically elected government. It has been mentioned multiple times in this thread. If it was all about alleged war crimes and the likes, Azerbaijan wouldn't be competing either. Morocco wouldn't be allowed to enter (which they are, they just choose not to).

My social media is unfortunately full of blown up Gazan children. If there was a pro-Palestinian campaign to vote for a particular country, it would have come to my feed.

The tweets I saw where those forwarded by others showing how people who were pro-Israel were asking people to us all votes for Eden Golan.

Please try harder to understand subtleties of my original post you responded to 🤔

That's what I mean though - you clearly surround yourself with a lot of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel accounts and people, so obviously you'll receive a lot of anti-Israel messages.

Ukraine also did well in public vote - you really don't think there were people voting 20 times each for them? Come on. Be realistic. And don't apply different standards to Israel and its supporters than you do to others.

Well it seems that you are not doubting that there was no particular « pro-Palestinian » country to vote for, and that there may have been a push to vote for Israel for whatever reason.

You are right - I may not have seen a push to vote for another particular country, but somehow I doubt that would have had the same international impact as a pro-Israel push for voting for Eden Golan.

I am also going to reiterate that cannot use the results of the televote for Israel as a measure of its popularity without understanding how the votes were distributed amongst households.

Well, no. I'm pretty sure Ireland received a lot of anti-Israel votes as thanks for doing their best to get Israel disqualified. I just haven't trawled the internet looking for people willing to admit to it.

Oh well, if you doubt something then I guess it must be so! The arrogance of some. Ukraine literally won the competition because of political voting two years ago yet people didn't complain. But when it's for Israel, we need to make it into a massive issue. I suppose hypocrites will hypocrit. And Israel will as always be held to different standards than anyone else. Nothing new to see here, unfortunately.

At the same time the popular vote in Ireland gave Israel 10 points.

Because when push comes to shove the Irish will always vote for a good song we are a musical nation after all 😉

I wasn’t suggesting anything less!

Maybe some of the Irish were embarrassed about the bullying antics being done in their name …

I feel that too. The decadent visuals, the derivative musaq, the money spent, it seems so far away from the realities of imminent starvation, death and suffering. Yet it functions as a political message to state positions of loyalty, acceptance, rejection and enmity between countries. UK is back to the 'nul' points post-Iraq backlash of 2003. Despite overwhelming public votes for Israel, they are not voting in huge numbers for the UK, I think? Nor is anyone else, and maybe it should give the UK pause to consider our unpopularity and the reasons why. Switzerland won, nobody knows why, but the Jury seemed very keen for that to be the outcome. The only performer with any connection to Palestine was disqualified. That could well have been his own fault, but we don't really know the details yet. The Israeli performer was harassed and feared for her safety, but she is not the one who shot or bombed innocent people, nor is she blocking aid trucks. The whole event is a spectacle of distraction, manipulation and polarisation, disguised with sparkly glitter.