4 countries to boycott Eurovision due to Israel’s continued inclusion

[Everexpanding]

In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, the Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said it would also withdraw from next year’s contest. “After weighing all perspectives, Avrotros concludes that, under the current circumstances, participation cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organisation.”

The Slovenian national broadcaster, RTVSLO – the first to threaten a boycott this summer – said participation “would conflict with its values of peace, equality and respect”.

Spain’s culture minister, Ernest Urtasun, backed the decision, adding: “You can’t whitewash Israel given the genocide in Gaza. Culture should be on the side of peace and justice. I’m proud of an RTVE that puts human rights before any economic interest

RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/dec/04/ireland-spain-and-the-netherlands-to-boycott-eurovision-2026-as-israel-cleared-to-compete

I assure you that if Russia hadn’t been sanctioned so heavily, we would be doing the same with Russia. If more people were aware about what Azerbaijan had done, they would be just as loud about kicking them out as they are about Israel.

The fact is that it has taken public action for governments to do anything at all to deal with the corrupt IDF/Israeli government. It is a sad reality and I feel like it is this in part that motivates people to be louder about Israel.

To those who say that the boycott was motivated by anti semitism, would you say that the countries trying to kick Russia out were Russophobic? This is the type of argument Putin and his buddies use to keep him there.

I am concerned about those things whetever they happen. They are not specifically Israeli issues. I've said many times the government should be called to account for any illegal behaviour. We often know about illegal things, if and when they happen because Israel has a functioning democracy, rule of law and functioning free media. It crosses lines sometimes. Nowhere else in the ME has those functioning levers of a free society. How many extra judicial killings in gaza do we even know about? The point about antisemitism is when people only focus in Israel and pretend its faults are unique.

Some of the things you reference are the function of a terrible war against an enemy that has no rule of law that we would recognise and no functioning democratic system. You can't judge Israel fully against abstract ideals.

As explained many, many times.

Who has ever started a thread defending children being killed? Why are you comparing Israel with the Taliban? Both are grotesque. There is no possible chance of sensible discussion.

I stand with Israel against terrorism . Has anyone found those 20,000 dead children yet? As apparently no mass grave has been found in Palestine. I saw a queue for the iPhone 17 in Gaza. Is this “starvation?”

Both do things that are indefensible but people on here only defend one of them 24/7. Of course people have been defending the killing of children. You are here all the time you've seen it, we've all seen it. One that springs to mind is all of the excuses for the little premature babies Israel killed and left to decompose. They blamed the poor parents. They blamed the Drs who spent days begging the international community to help them. Then there was little 8 year old Adam. There was a thread full of accusations that he would be a future terrorist anyway, 10s of excuses about why little Adam deserved to be shot in the head as he ran away from the IDF. I remember it clearly.

Do that about little children in Ukraine and see how you get on.

This is untrue.

It's not untrue. Which part are you denying is true?

That thread on Adam changed how I saw this conflict. I had no idea how some people viewed Palestinian children until that thread where people watched a video of an 8 year old boy being shot in the head and killed as he ran away from the IDF and then defended it. They watched a child being executed and instead of being appalled they fell over themselves to excuse it. It is something that will stay with me forever.

Your entire framing is disingenous and I suspect the details are untrue though I am obviously not going to waste my time going through the entire board for 2 years. Either way its not an accurate reflection of the discussions as a whole.

No it's not. I will die on that hill. Some things stay with you and those 2 in particular have stayed with me because of just how grotesque they were.

Like I said do that about Ukrainian children, then call everyone who disagrees with you a dumb racist and see how many replies you get.

You see I don't believe this for a minute and I dont see how you can. Sanctions could and should be much heavier against Russia, Trump is being very weak with Russia. There are no demos anywhere that I know of. No popular momentum, even if the serious news covers it.

I agree with @CrossChecking . I have been deeply shocked by many of the posts I have seen on these boards. The dehumanisation of Palestinians including children, the excusing of the slaughter and denial of aid to a corralled population indiscriminately bombed from the skies. I knew people carried out terrible acts but never thought I would seem them justified by mothers.

I would say there was probably something else behind it, yes, given that other countries have had problematic regimes and undertaken problematic policies including being fascist (Spain), killing children and falsifying birth and death records (Spain, Ireland), secession, war (Slovenia) and still been able to take part in this singing show.

As I see it there are likely several reasons, some interconnected. At historic base level, there is a mistrust about Slavic peoples within Europe. Then there's the not-quite-cold war which is relevant for a show administrated by western European nations. Added to that, I really do think the immediate driver for the knee jerk reaction is this contemporary mania for dividing the world into good and evil, where everyone needs to pick a side.

Kicking Russia out was very simple. Russia aggressively invaded a peaceful sovreign nation in Europe. Refugees then flooded other European nations putting enormous strain on them. Russia was also threatening enervy supplies across Europe. And waging its own war on our democracies through cyber activity. How many reasons do you need. Russia is a threat IN Europe.

So we should only care when European citizens are victims or inconvenienced?

Omg. I'm explaining why, strategically, it was straightforeard and necessary to have a cultural boycott of Russia. It beggars belief that this is hard to understand.

And what has happened to Ukraine is not 'inconveniencing' it is it? What an absolutely appalli g thing to say. Thousands killed, thousands of children kidnapped and 'reeducated', thousands displaced and trafficked, refugees all over Europe.

This is nonsensical. All of the phenomenona you mention there are historic and widespread across Europe. Your approach on these matters is quite xenophobic, I'm afraid.

Let’s see here:

Russia is excluded from pretty much every competition, even in cases when they didn’t cheat. This includes a cat competition.

Russians, even those who risked 10 year prison sentences to protest, had to face being locked in the country despite doing everything in their power to protest. A lot of people here won’t even protest against Israel when there are no such consequences.

Russians can’t access many products for themselves, including video games, films etc (which they have to pirate). Not the worst thing on this list by a landslide, but a lot of people in this country would struggle without these comforts.

Russia is banned from the international banking system.

Cultural events that have literally nothing to do with the current war, including ballet, have not been allowed if the participants are Russian/companies are Russian.

I could go on. I don’t know what else we could do besides bombing them or starving them.

Yes Russia should definitely be excluded :
looking at children alone Russia have killed 733
can you explain why Israel who have killed 20,000 children should be treated differently?

“KYIV, 10 September 2025 – The equivalent of about 150 classrooms of children have been killed or injured in Ukraine since the start of full-scale war, Save the Children said just days after further attacks on Kyiv killed civilians including a baby. [1]
New United Nations figures published today show there have been 3,018 child casualties - including 733 killed and 2,285 injured - across Ukraine since February 2022, highlighting the grave violations against children that are ongoing in the conflict and illegal under international law.”

I am not saying they shouldn’t. I am saying that it’s not antisemitic to ban Israel in the same way that it isn’t Russophobic to ban Russia. My point above was to argue that there are a lot of sanctions against Russia.

It shows bias that Israel isn’t excluded because the contest “isn’t political”, when they have made very clear political stances against Russia. The wars being different and having different origins doesn’t change this statement.

Hrm I wouldn't say that Russia/Ukraine conflict was as simple as one peaceful unblemished nation being invaded by big mad Putin. Russia initially moved into Donbas in 2014 following Euromaiden. Euromaiden was a happening that at least involved outside NATO aligned actors, and ethnic Russians on the border were certainly under threat at that time, not least from the neo nazi Ukrainian brigade subsequently taken onto regular Ukraine army payroll. When NATO continued to supply "training" in the area, and Ukraine negotiated for more and closer ties with NATO and EU during this time of conflict, this was obviously a threat to Russia and it had to act to protect its border. I still think it instructive that neither Ukraine nor Russia actually declared war - the tipping point where war was eventually determined was called by the US/NATO who were already there, and shortly after the UK. It's a murky chapter, for sure.