Your participations are increasingly problematic and there is no good solution

It may be The voting systemit may be the opposition of some rebel televisions, but what is indisputable is that Eurovision has a problem with Israel. A hot potato that generates controversy and division between fans and is the main reason that this year, a couple of days after the celebration of the contest, we have stopped talking about music. However, the history of Israel and Eurovision goes back far back in time.

Why does Israel participate in Eurovision? Israel is not a European country and yet Participate in full in the contest. This is due to the fact that it belongs since 1957 to the European Broadcasting Union (URU), the organization that produces and regulates the festival, an international corporation of broadcasting of ownership and public service, but without linking to the European Union. Countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Australia participate under the same conditions.

A long history. Israel debuted in the contest in 1973, being the first non -European country to do so. Since then, he has competed more than fifty. They have won in four:

• 1978: Izhar Cohen & The Alphabeta with ‘A-Ba-Ni-Bi’ (157 points).
• 1979: Gali Atari & Milk and Honey with ‘Hallelujah’ (125 points).
• 1998: Dana International with ‘Diva’ (174 points).
• 2018: Netta with “Toy” (529 points: 212 of the jury and 317 of the Televoto).

Thanks to this they have had the opportunity to celebrate the contest three times, in Jerusalem (1979 and 1999) and Tel Aviv (2019). They resigned to do so in 1980, for coinciding the festival with the day of the memory of the Jewish holocaust. His career is especially remarkablereaching Top 10 on twenty occasions.

Comparisons with Russia. Israel’s presence in Eurovision has been criticized since 2023, when The war started in the Gaza Strip. The first thing that was accused of Eurovision was of a certain hypocrisy for not expelling Israel as it had done in 2022, vending Russia After the invasion of Ukraine. The justification of Eurovision was that the contest is a competition between public broadcasters, not governments, and that Israeli public television (Kan) continues to meet the requirements of editorial independence and public service that, however, considers that Russian public chains have lost.

Songs with problems. Already that same 2023, the song with which Israel participated in the contest, ‘Hurricane’, played by Eden Golan, He gave problems because it was suspected that its lyrics contained evening allusions to the attacks of October 7. The lyrics and the video clip used metaphors that reminded the young people fleeing from the attack at the Nova Music Festival, where Eden was one of the survivors. Finally, Israel maintained its participation after threatening to retire Yes ‘Hurricane’ was disqualified.

Too many interests. But if your participation is so problematic, why don’t Eurovision exclude Israel? This is a network of interests where the sponsorship and financing of the festival stands out: since 2020, the main Eurovision sponsor is Moroccanoil, a company of cosmetics of Israeli origin that performs 80% of its production in Israel and has a continuous presence in the contest, from its appearance in all the curtains and scenarios to the styling of the artists. The brand has been accused of manufacturing in occupied Palestinian territories. Different sources point out that Moroccanoil would withdraw a very juicy sponsorship if Israel was expelled from the contest.

The Eurofans protest. Next to the controversial votes, in social networks A series of videos have been seen that they result in the idea that the televoto has little to do with the desire of the authentic fans of the contest: constant boos In Israel’s performance, Palestinian flags that they have not been able to be hidden by realization, expulsions of spectators In essays … the contrast between Eurofans (even among those who advocate The impossible: that the contest is apolitic) and the televoto mediated by pro-Israeli media and organs is more pronounced than ever.

It has its fans. But of course, there is the other side of the equation: we cannot forget that, despite the protests of many Eurofans, Israel has won the contest with authentic classics. Especially notorious was Dana International’s performance in 1998, which was a step forward in the LGTBI representation in Eurovision, giving to a large extent the contest we know today. Eurovision is largely its LGTBI audience, and Israel took a giant step in its day in that direction, something that many followers still remember and thank.

It is also unfair to say that the entire televoto, however broken the system, was mediated by political interests: the trajectory at the Israel Festival demonstrates that their themes have genuine defenders: the controversy of its presence only dates back a couple of years ago, but historically Israel has gone well stopped the voting since the seventies. The protests of Spain and Belgium, in short, are exceptions: most European governments support Israel’s policy, and that also influences the positioning of their voters in Eurovision.

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