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

As I said you are entitled to your opinion. Lammy is obviously more informed than you are.

Well the Uk have been assisting so possibly in their interest not to judge Israel’s actions a genocide

Well, working on that basis then, I would say that Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon also has advisors, yet manages to say some pretty outrageous things on behalf of Israel, and yet it was argued that it was only him that thought Albanese was a witch not all of Israel. Funny that.

You realise that it is different organisations behind each thing right? The FAI don't enter the eurovision song contest 😂 Not to mention Israel weren't good enough to make it to the qualifiers so aren't there anyway.

Lammy has stated it is not him, our country or any country to decide if Israel are committing a genocide. He has stated that decision is for the ICJ

The ICJ decision has not been made and Israel were given an extension until January next year to put their case forward.
A likely final decision will not be until 2027

The ICJ have stated
“ In January last year, the ICJ ruled that the claim of genocide was “plausible” and acknowledged “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the court renders its final judgment”.

Meanwhile many humanitarian agencies have declared the situation in Gaza a Genocide

They have certainly opened the door to being asked that question, along with the other countries that have withdrawn from Eurovision because “principles”.

Ok so Israel didn’t qualify but still … no country was saying they wouldn’t compete if Israel was allowed to be part of the competition were they?

No they were asking for Israel to be expelled, but since they didn’t qualify no matter

You do realise that 'Ireland' didnt pull out of the Eurovision? It was a broadcaster called called RTÉ. 'Ireland' wouldn't be pulling out of the world Cup, it would be the FAI. I don't know how things are done in the UK but here we don't have one hive mind behind every sport, the arts etc. Each is ran by a different organisation, they are all independent of each other anf make decisions independent of each other.

RTÉ the broadcaster for instance mentioned the way their colleagues have been targeted in Gaza and how access by journalists has been restricted as part of their reasoning for cancelling. Each organisation will have their own thoughts and opinions,there is no 'Ireland' hive mind behind all sporting, media, arts organisations.

Are people really imagining the same people in the room in meetings about the Ireland football team and a singing competition? Is this how the UK works?

Wrong!
Spain did
and much like Eurovision maybe others too had Israel actually made it to the world cup
What we don’t know, we don’t know

but Spain said they would
so not ‘no country’

Probably would have had the same result as Slovenia did when they “demanded” that Israel be excluded from Eurovision as per the other thread on this topic.

What bullied into silence or withdrawing ? Maybe

Pathetic virtue signalling. What does eg Spain care about anyone else apart from themselves?

Quite a lot it would seem

Actually it does matter. Israel qualifying neither here or there, the issue is people campaigning to exclude Israel.

I stand corrected- no country but Spain.

Gosh this is some mental gymnastics. Yes we know organisations are the mechanism but those organisations are part of the fabric of those countries especially in areas like eurovision amd football which are entirely dependant on popular parricipation. As if RTE would pull out if it wasnt a popular position. And it is 'Ireland' competing not RTE.

It really isn't. I find it fascinating that people think it is!

If people here spoke that way about Israel would you agree.... The government is part of the fabric of the country as if they would enact racial segregation, illegal occupation and prevent aid from reaching innocent people if it weren't popular opinion. And the Israeli government were voted on, RTÉ didn't conduct a public vote before pulling out of the Eurovision.

Some people really need to sit down and think about their prejudice towards Ireland here because multiple posts have been deleted in the past 24hrs for gross generalisations about the Irish population. I mean it's obvious that some posters feel strongly about our little country and that's OK but prejudice isn't so maybe just stop and think about what you are saying about the varied population of over 5 million people.

.thats not how Eurovision works

The decision to take part is by the EBU members
They are broadcasters within countries
It’s not a countries decision to overturn that. They don’t have that right

To add to this if you knew as much about Ireland as you purport to you would know that RTÉ has been deeply unpopular and controversial for a few years now. In the past year TV licence fees are down 58million due to boycotts(we do love a boycott here but sure you'd know that being an expert on Ireland and all) following scandals.

Ah, ok, so RTE's position on the boycott is unpopular is it? They are just going it alone with no consideration of the popular view in Ireland? Interesting commercial decision. Please do explain as I have never 'purported' to know anything about Irish broadcast media politics. I'm just a casual observer of a singing competition which has always been presented to us as countries competing for a prize won by a popular vote.Will we see Irish people now boycotting RTE because they think they should not be boycotting the IBA? (Apparently its the IBA they are boycotting, not Israel)

A 'casual observer' who declared 'who cares' then posts relentlessly about it?

You are making generalisations based on the actions of one broadcaster who you seem to think represents 'Ireland' as a whole(well not whole because the 6 counties). There are enough posters here who accuse the BBC of being antisemitic do they represent the UK as a whole, they are part of the fabric of your country? Does that mean your football team is also antisemetic? What other organisations are antisemitic, athletics, rugby, ballet? How many do we have to get to before we declare that the whole of the UK is antisemitic and racist too?

Is channel 14 representative of Israel, part of the fabric of their society. The channel that's called for Genocide against Palestinians more that 50 times. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't popular right?

Like where are we drawing these lines when it comes to generalisations? When is it OK to declare a whole country is x, y or z and so every other organisation needs to follow that or they are 'two faced' based on the actions of 1 organisation?

I'm going to leave you to it. I can only think this is some sort of plot to waste my time as noone would surely expect serious answers to this?

No, I don't expect answers from you Sharon, I think we addressed that on a different thread this morning 😂

Of course Israel shouldn't compete, their inclusion will lead to less countries competing, more protests, wrecking it all for everyone, even leading to the whole thing collapsing.

Israel has targeted journalists, medics, civilians but even if you disagree with this, Israel manipulated the vote last year to almost win it... thats called cheating, reason enough for exclusion.

In Pro Cycling Israel Premier Tech has been chucked out of many races after protests.
The Team has folded now.

The majority of peoples in Europe do not support Israel's actions.