Why is Israel still in Eurovision? The answer is more complex than you might think

By: Chris West, author of the book Eurovision: The history of modern Europe through the world's biggest song contest [Eurovision: A History of Modern Europe Through the World's Greatest Song Contest] / The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

As they prepare to watch this year’s final on Saturday, many Eurovision fans will feel divided. Some won’t watch at all. The reason is Israel’s participation. Isn’t Eurovision supposed to be about “love, love, peace, peace” (as the Swedish hosts of the 2016 contest so well portrayed)? If so, they might ask, what is the occupier of Gaza doing there?

Some people claim that those who run Eurovision, members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), are simply spineless. Others point to the sponsorship of the event by [company] Moroccanoil, which despite its Moroccan-sounding name is Israeli. But a large international organization is hardly dependent on a cosmetics company.

Read also: Eurovision as a political arena

Eurovision vlogger Matthew Wrather has put forward a more specific argument: it’s all about the EBU’s fundamental purpose. The union was founded in 1950 and had both a technical and what we would now call a political purpose. Technically, the project was about sharing ideas and enabling international broadcasting (the song contest was just one of these: the first was an awards festival in Montreux). Politically, the EBU supported state-run public broadcasting with an essentially critical and liberal bent: broadcasters who were merely mouthpieces for their governments – were excluded. Having fought Nazism and now living in the shadow of Soviet Russia, Western Europeans saw open debate as the essence of serious broadcasting.

However, this model has since come under attack. In much of Europe, the right regularly criticizes public broadcasters as liberal mouthpieces. Many on the left see them as bastions of conservative values, defending status quo-at best, or as state propaganda at worst. With its mission now contested, the EBU has its back against the wall – as it did not have in 1950.

Nowhere is this more true than in Israel. In 2017, Benjamin Netanyahu abolished the old Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) – Eurovision that year was its last broadcast. The reasons given were financial, but commentators argue that it was a political move: the IBA was seen as too left-wing. It was replaced by Kan, the current broadcaster. Kan is more submissive than the IBA – but still not as obedient as the government, which wants to hand it over to the private sector, would like. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi previously put forward a proposal in this direction, in 2023, accusing the network of biased coverage and claiming that it spoke in a “disgraceful manner” towards members of the government. Such a body would violate EBU rules and would not be allowed to participate in Eurovision.

The EBU feels it has an obligation to protect Cannes, even if it means jeopardizing the Eurovision brand. That’s what it was created for: to support “free and independent” public broadcasting. Organizing the Eurovision song contest is just a tangent to this mission.

There is no easy solution. After Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the EBU took no action to ban Russia from Eurovision until participating countries moved from statements and suggestions for meaningful dialogue to threats to withdraw – that’s when swift action was taken. The same has not happened with regard to Israel’s inclusion in the contest.

In a way, the EBU is a victim of its own success in running Eurovision. The contest has grown from its original, essentially entertaining roots into something that sends powerful political messages around the world. Its leaders had it easy, for a long time, because those messages were unquestionable in liberal circles. When transgender Israeli singer Dana International won in 1998, the EBU could rightly be praised as a leader of social change. So too with Conchita Wurst’s stunning victory in 2014. Eurovision was about good and wonderful things. “Love, love, peace, peace.”

Now, the organization faces a dilemma. The current Israeli government is not a peacemaker, and its participation in the contest has been used by some to express support for the state. In the long term, the EBU should either relinquish control of the song contest, or change its mission so that the protection (and development) of the Eurovision brand is clearly at the heart of its purpose. It should establish clearer rules for selection, so that the contest is truly about “love, love, peace, peace.” But this year, Eurovision will not be an easy show for the discerning fan to watch. /Telegraph/