Dispose of the EuroTrash

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Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands will boycott Eurovision-2026 because Israel will be allowed to compete in the song competition. The very notion that people with such abysmal track records would have the effrontery to purport to judge the morality of Israel is both ludicrous and disgusting.

Upon reflection, perhaps we should be grateful that Israeli performers will not bear the taint of having to share a stage with representatives of these countries.  Justice and fairness would militate in favor of relegating the boycotters to an alternative competition limited to countries that excelled at collaborating with the Nazis, have a history of colonization of indigenous people, and made significant contributions to the practice of murdering civilians in terrorist attacks.

Call it Eurovision for Morally Obtuse Smug Hypocrites, or EuroMosh. Or perhaps Fascist-vision, the music competition for virtue signaling antisemites.

Spain.  Ireland.  Slovenia.  The Netherlands.  What a contemptible quartet!

Spain was, in all but name, an ally of Nazi Germany.  While Franco proclaimed neutrality because he feared the consequences of belligerency, Spain provided economic aid, war materiel, intelligence, and “volunteer” troops (the Blue Division) to the German Army, which had supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War.  Franco secretly provided Himmler with a list of Spanish Jews.  Of course, well before the 20th century, Spain was distinguishing itself as an imperial monster, colonizing, brutalizing, enslaving, murdering, raping, and torturing millions of indigenous Central and South American people.  Under the banner of the Inquisition, it forcibly converted, murdered, and expelled its entire Jewish population. Curiously, it denies independence to its Basque separatist minority; no two-state solution for Spain.

Judge not, lest ye be judged, they say.  Spain lacks the moral standing to judge a skunk.

But, that said, its moral standing may still be a tad higher than that of The Netherlands. Having been shamefully kept secret for decades, as perpetrators grew old and died, recent (January 2025) releases from the Central Archives of the Special Jurisdiction show that over 400,000 people in the Netherlands may have collaborated with their German occupiers between 1940 and 1945.  Many Dutch officials worked with the occupiers to enforce Nazi policies, Dutch companies provided goods and services, and Dutch citizens joined Nazi organizations, including thousands who enlisted in the Waffen–SS and fought on the Eastern Front.  Dutch collaborators, including the police, helped to identify, inform on, arrest, and deport Jews, their erstwhile neighbors.  75% of Dutch Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, among the highest rates in Western Europe.  About 107,000 Jews were deported from the Netherlands, with about 5,000 surviving.

Now the people who betrayed Anne Frank would like to go after the survivors.  Who would want to share a stage with them?

To be fair, there were Dutch who resisted heroically.  They are probably turning over in their graves.

Oh, yes–the Dutch colonized and looted an empire as well.  Who better to judge their moral superiors?

I’m going to give Slovenia a pass, because being Slovenia is enough of an embarrassment.  Also because I am grateful for Melania Trump and feel bad that they won’t give her the Vogue First Lady cover she deserves.  (But just note in passing that a portion of the country, then part of Yugoslavia, was actually annexed by Germany during the war.  Its armed forces and police collaborated; the Jews did not fare well–87% of the pre-war Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust.)

Ireland.  It’s hard to know where to start.  Its politicians, academics, and press compete to see who can express more vile and vitriolic antisemitism.  The words “Irish” and “terrorist” were, unfortunately, frequently treated as synonymous throughout the British Empire, as IRA murderers were prepared to use any means necessary, including the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, to advance their perceived goals. Is it any wonder that the Irish identify with and favor Hamas over Israel?  Perhaps they feel that supporting the perpetrators of the October 7 atrocities makes their own crimes against humanity seem more palatable.

Less known than their callous attitude toward the murder of innocents, their antipathy to the British led a significant portion of them to side with the Nazis. The most famous of the Irish Nazis (born in America to an Irish father and raised in Ireland) was William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw, who broadcast nightly propaganda messages from Germany during the war.  He was executed for treason by the British in 1946.  Sean Russell, an IRA Chief of Staff, sought to ally Irish fighting forces with the Nazis to fight against the British.  Charles Bewley, the Irish minister in Berlin, tried to persuade the Germans not to issue exit visas to Jews hoping to escape to Ireland.

I could go on, but there is no reason to belabor the point.  No country is above reproach or criticism, but Israel, if anything, is more admirable in many objectively measurable ways than its critics.  And song festivals are not the right places for anyone, especially people from countries made entirely of glass, to throw stones.  These are empty political gestures, genuflecting to the Palestine solidarity movement that is agitating and making spurious allegations of apartheid and genocide in an attempt to harm the Jewish State.  No genocide.  No famine.  No apartheid.  Just an odious and repulsive organized agenda of seeking to blacken the reputation of a country fighting for survival against an existential threat.

Ideally, the Zionist solidarity movement should make its own political gesture and exact a price from countries that transgress in this way.  People who support Israel, or people who simply believe in fairness, should not vacation in Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, or the Netherlands.  People seeking to do business there should consider other venues.  For a start, boycott Spanish olive oil.  Sympathetic allies in the U.S. Congress should be approached and  lobbied to enforce United States law against boycott and discrimination.

There should be a red line: one should not get to publicly discriminate against Israel with impunity. Whenever we are under attack for being Jews or Israelis, or for supporting Israel, it is not enough to be aggrieved.  We must organize, coalesce, and act vigorously and effectively, over and over again.  Empowered and invigorated, we should not be afraid to act on behalf of our survival and our security, and to retaliate economically against those who would harm us.

Outrage isn’t enough.

Out of the goodness of my heart, one cautionary note: if the axis of Israel-hating boycotters does sponsor a new anti-Israel song festival, it might want to stay away from Hamas sympathizers.  Those folks don’t have a record of treating concert-goers well.