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

@belleager

All of the phenomenona you mention there are historic and widespread across Europe

Yes and no one ever got banned for them before.

We live in the present, and we deal with the problems of the present. Why would we wait ask, did my grandparents take equivalent action a few decades back?

Whataboutery can just be an excuse to try to sling mud or to distract from current problems. Israeli atrocities are a current problem.

What I mean is that it was previously always the case that whatever was going on where you lived, if your nationality made you eligible, if you could physically and legally get to Eurovision, and if your country was recognised as a country, you could take part.

That changed with the move to exclude Russia and now the precedent has been set you've got every Tom Dick and Harry wanting to veto whoever they don't agree with.

It has been awful at times. Especially in the first few months. Little Adam was executed in November 2023, it was like watching a pack of rabid animals on that thread, the sheer hatred people had for Palestinians including children was so, so clear. Like I said it was a turning point for me because I just had no idea. I was deleting old emails a while back and came across one from mumsnet, it was from a thread I had reported. The premise of the thread was that people in the UK don't realise that Palestinian children aren't like their children so when they see a child like Adam being killed they shouldn't feel the same way they would about a British child being killed. The thread was deleted but even the fact that someone thought that mumsnet was a safe place to post that racist bilge says a lot about how mumsnet was at the time.

People can deny it but it happened and it taught me a lot about this conflict and the treatment of Palestinians of the years and I won't ever forget it.

There was another thread on it too
Considering these remarks were considered acceptable by mumsnet this thread isn’t as bad as the deleted one

The worst of the posts deleted but you get the gist from the shocked comments

So no need to trawl through two years worth of threads

I don't see this as problematic. Vetos, sanctions and boycotts have their place, and arrangements change over time. I'm not aware of movements to sanction any state but Russia and Israel in this way, but obviously broadcasters are free to raise other cases if they see fit. They are funding the enterprise, after all.

They never previously had any place in Eurovision.

You need to spend a bit more time on google Im afraid.

@Lunalara just one eg of something further that could be done https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/27/west-is-missing-obscure-sanctions-that-could-set-back-russias-war-machine

Let’s hope they do this on Israel as they continue to kill Palestinians

It’s very overdue

And now they do. Broadcasters presumably have always had the freedom to associate or otherwise. So it's no surprise that, at a certain point, concerned about the treatment of their colleagues internationally, they use that freedom.

There is a ceasefire in Israel/Gaza there is nothing close to one in Ukraine.

There may be a ceasefire ‘on paper’ but it hasn’t stopped the IDF and Netanyahu stop killing Palestinians which I’m guessing you haven’t missed in the news

From
The Guardian
‘ The term ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion life is returning to normal’ for Palestinians squeezed into the remaining 42% of their land behind Israel’s ‘yellow line’
Sat 6 Dec 2025 06.00 GMT
Share

When Jumaa and Fadi Abu Assi went to look for firewood their parents thought they would be safe. They were just young boys, aged nine and 10 and, after all, a ceasefire had been declared in Gaza.
Their mother, Hala Abu Assi, was making tea in the family’s tent in Khan Younis when she heard an explosion, a missile fired by an Israeli drone. She ran to the scene – but it was too late.

Since the US-brokered ceasefire announced on 10 October, Israeli forces have killed more than 360 Palestinians in Gaza; according to a UN official, at least 70 are children – like Jumaa and Fadi.
View image in fullscreen
A mourner holds up a phone picturing Jumaa and Fadi Abu Assi at the boys’ funeral on 29 November. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

They were killed, their mother said, at “a time when bloodshed was supposed to stop”.
“After the ceasefire was announced, I felt a bit of safety and believed that nothing would harm my children any more,” Abu Assi said. “But fate had another plan.”
She is focused now on keeping her two surviving daughters alive. “I still hear explosions and gunfire,” she said. “I do not feel that the war has ended.”

So
Not really a ceasefire then
and as such I applaud all those who sanction or/and boycott Israel

I was referring to your point of Ukrainians coming to live in other European families as part of your explanation why Europe is supporting boycott of Russia.. I will be more careful to be sure explicit to for you.

Yes and it has changed the ambit/ethos of Eurovision. Maybe you're one of those people who like that. I am not. I feel uneasy with any broad brush decision taken by a subset of actors (in this case the EBU committee) on behalf of a wider group and the implications of collusion/agreement that goes with it. I prefer people to muddle along rather than be required to take moral stances on issues that aren't actually questions of morality at all.

Thanks @Hortesne this is how I feel - it is better, if possible, to keep everyone around the table and to avoid pushing people into taking moral stances where it’s avoidable.

The current way of seeing the world is very black and white, ‘right/wrong side of history’ which I think is a great mistake and pushes people to ever more entrenched viewpoints.

Many were welcomed and continue to be welcome but it undoubtedly put a strain on resources and logistics and was deeply traumatic for the refugees and the hosts were party to that and saw first hand how the refugees would rather be at home. A desire to sanction Rusia was an expression of empathy not a reaction to 'inconvenience' in my experience.

I agree. But my point is that we should not only care when the victims are European.

Unless we are clear as to what is wrong or right, when can we clear that laws have been broken?
It’s alright if you are not the victim though? I guess some would be happy to leave the Palestinians to muddle along.

Ha ha that comes across as line out of a Terminator movie.

But of course you'd say that but on the evidence of this thread, its "Israel can do no wrong, ever"

Not according to officials in Qatar, Israel is just a little more reasonable than Russia.

Ok, so I note that you haven’t mentioned concern for Palestinian lives or right to self determination in your motivations for your personal criticism of the Israeli government. Can I ask you, do you think the Israeli government have acted fairly towards the Palestinians?

Secondly the reason I am asking you these questions is because the discourse over the last two years has been filled with accusations of antisemitism and they have stopped people discussing the issues at hand as the pro Palestinians spend a disproportionate amount of time explaining that they are indeed not. It feels like a deflection and so I’m trying to see what lies behind it.

In fact, I think that is one of the many reasons behind what you call the “obsession” and “disproportionate” amount of interest in the Israeli-Palestine issue. No one likes being called an anti-Semite, especially those who genuinely know that they are not, so we continually come back to explain that we are not and why we are not.

In short, rather than shutting down the conversation, accusations of anti-semitism (indirect or not), just fan the flames.

Suddenly we take the word of what officials in Qatar say?

Qatar 2024

Migrant workers, including domestic workers, continued to face human rights abuses, including wage theft, harsh working conditions and poor access to redress mechanisms. Qatar and FIFA again failed to provide redress for the vast numbers of migrants abused while working on 2022 World Cup projects. The right to freedom of expression remained curtailed. Women and LGBTI people continued to face discrimination in law and practice. Qatar’s latest emissions reduction target was undermined by a plan to vastly expand liquefied natural gas production.

Migrant workers continued to face serious abuses, including wage theft, restrictions on changing jobs and inadequate grievance and redress mechanisms

Women continued to face discrimination in law and practice. Under the guardianship system, women needed a male guardian’s permission to marry, study abroad on government scholarships, work in many government jobs, travel abroad if aged under 25, and access reproductive healthcare.
Women remained inadequately protected in law against domestic violence.

Legislation continued to discriminate against LGBTI people. Authorities detained individuals for their sexual orientation or gender expression.
In February, plain-clothes security forces arrested Manuel Guerrero Aviña, a British-Mexican national, shortly after he agreed to meet another man through the LGBTI dating app Grindr. His family believed he was entrapped by law enforcement officials. Authorities detained him without charge for more than six weeks, interrogated him without a lawyer and forced him to thumbprint a so-called “confession” in Arabic, which he did not understand. The authorities subsequently charged him with drug-related offences and sentenced him to a six-month suspended prison term. He returned to the UK in June after receiving a deportation order.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/middle-east/qatar/report-qatar/

Who said that? I missed it.

Laws are broken when laws are broken. That's a different question from right and wrong, especially when it comes to the actions of a country. A country can't be a moral actor, it doesn't work like that. A country acts in its own interests, and that's a country's job. I realise that for some time we've all been encouraged to see the world in terms of evil villains and virtuous victims but that doesn't mean it's an accurate take. Not least because the designations change depending on where you're standing so obviously by definition it's not possible to make absolute judgements.

And none of this has anything to do with a bloody singing show.