The Eurovision Song Contest and its political hue

At next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, Israel will perform. The attempt to block the country from participating failed, as the EBU refused to hold a vote on Israel’s entry. It led to an immediate response. Four national broadcasters decided to boycott the next edition, among them one from the country where I live. The EBU has tried very hard to keep the apolitical nature of the event sacred. However, I would like to venture another viewpoint: it has always been political.

AVROTROS, the Dutch public broadcaster, decided to issue an official statement almost immediately. It claimed that the decision had not been taken lightly, but they could not participate next year, due to Israel’s inclusion. Culture should connect people, but it was quick to point out that inclusion did not come at all costs. It accused Israel of a number of issues and considered the fragile ceasefire insufficient. The language was polished, the message carefully constructed. It added that it had spoken to the Israeli ambassador, yet the decision had already been made: Israel needed to be excluded. No attempt to cover that up will succeed.

The EBU has decided to implement reforms. While it did succeed in keeping Israel on board, the new rules go a long way to satisfy the boycotting countries. Votes per person will be cut in half, government-funded PR campaigns for contestants will be discouraged, and the jury will now account for 50 percent of a country’s vote in the semifinals. Considering that the juries scored both Eden Golan and Yuval Raphael rather poorly in 2024 and 2025, respectively, it spells difficulty for Israel. It will be much harder to reach the final in the future. And yet, it was not enough. AVROTROS requested a secret vote on Israel’s participation, but the EBU rejected the demand and the reform vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the new rules; Israel could remain. Refusing to accept the results, which showed that the majority of broadcasters had not moved to their camp, shows a reluctance to accept defeat. Instead, Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, and the Netherlands – Iceland has joined the club and domestic pressure on Italy to join the boycott is mounting as well – decided to formally boycott next year’s contest.

Well, not quite. AVROTROS will hand over the broadcasting rights to another public broadcaster – yes, the Netherlands has an unnecessary multitude of them. However, no Dutch candidate will grace the stage next year. It has led to frustration among the Dutch public. Many Eurovision fans are happy that the decision was made. In their minds, AVROTROS made the right decision. In addition, there is some resentment over the 2023 disqualification of Joost Klijn. That was considered outrageous and unnecessary. To those fans, the boycott is also belated payback for the EBU. Honestly, Joost Klijn was a loose cannon and he behaved disgracefully during a joint press conference with Eden Golan in 2024. Along with a few other contestants, he made his contempt for her known. So, no, I was not sorry Joost Klijn was sent home. But, above all, I would argue that politics has always been a component of Eurovision. Despite the promise of unity, nothing can prevent that aspect from coming to the fore repeatedly.

It all started in the 1950s, when the EBU was created and a small number of Western European countries decided to set up a music contest. The Netherlands was one of the first participants. It would expand over time and from the 1970s, Israel would be included as well. Already then, the participating countries were a reflection of Cold War politics. In those days, the values that are constantly mentioned in the present were a little different, apparently. A short reflection on the backgrounds of participating countries seems to show this. In the 1960s, France was still trying to maintain its colonies – the war in Algeria is a prime example; Portugal and Spain were admitted, despite the fact that both countries were governed by dictators. And before the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, that country was engaged in its own desperate attempt to maintain prestige, by fighting devastating colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. The Netherlands had fought its last colonial war in Indonesia, which ended years before the first Eurovision Song Contest. But, even though the last colonial vestige was handed over peacefully in the case of Suriname, the Netherlands remained a colonial power until 1975.

In addition, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) covers more than Europe alone. Usually, critics will point out that Israel does not belong, but Armenia and Azerbaijan participate as well – not surprisingly, AVROTROS had nothing to say about the Nagorno-Karabakh War and the flight of Armenians from the enclave back in 2023. Türkiye has not participated in years, the result of its own boycott of Eurovision.

Thus, the vote on EBU reform included many non-European members. Indeed, the EBU’s concept of Europe is rather fluid – for example, Australia has been participating for years now. So, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco voted on the new measures. Moreover, Algeria pushed for a secret vote on Israel as well. That is not surprising, considering that the entire Algerian Jewish population has been uprooted; a place where even Jewish cemeteries have been destroyed by governments; where antisemitism in education and society at large – as explained by Algerian playwright Karim Akouche in 2017, for example – is not the exception, but the rule. So, no wonder that Algeria is obsessed with Israel.

Coincidentally, most MENA members have never participated in the contest, which can be explained by Israel’s presence. Only Morocco took part once in 1980. However, that was the year that Israel declined, because the contest coincided with Pesach.

An apolitical event, they tell us. When was that the case? Was it apolitical when the Israeli group PingPong sang a song in 2000, while waving Israeli and Syrian flags on stage, even though it was a message of peace and reconciliation? And was it apolitical when a Portuguese entry sang a protest song about collective struggle in 2011, tapping into public resentment over austerity measures during an economic crisis? Was it apolitical when in 2024 the Portuguese contestant Iolanda decided to incorporate the keffiyeh into the design of her nails?

The EBU’s determination to keep politics out of Eurovision is noble, it should be about music and connecting people from various backgrounds with each other. But it is idealistic and does not withstand scrutiny. Its presumed apolitical nature was already shattered by the fact that its MENA members have kept up a decades-long boycott of Israel.

So, the current boycott movement is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, these voices were already becoming louder in 2019, when Israel was hosting the event. A group from Iceland decided to grab its few seconds of fame, by displaying Palestinian banners. However, if AVROTROS now disingenuously claims to defend the apolitical nature of the event, by politically boycotting another country, that justification becomes null and void.

The comparison has been made time and again that Israel should be treated like Russia. The obvious difference is that Russia invaded Ukraine – also, when it annexed Crimea in 2014, it could still continue participating in Eurovision for years – whereas Hamas invaded Israel. Moreover, it was during the EBU’s assembly debate that the Ukrainian public broadcaster voiced its support for Israel’s participation. In addition, Israel could even be excluded as a consequence of the current government’s wish to shut down the Kan public broadcaster. Finally, the EBU’s ban on Russian broadcasters, which it considered to be very close to the Russian government, has led to Russia reviving a Cold War relic: the Intervision Song Contest. Once created as the Soviet response to Eurovision, it was reinstated this year, with multiple countries from Saudi Arabia to Vietnam participating – the latter won the first edition and more have been announced.

Last, but certainly not least, the tensions over Israel’s participation reflect another problem: the divide within the boycott countries themselves. Ironically, despite fan communities, public broadcasters and even politicians expressing their dismay over Israel’s presence, the popular vote showed an uncomfortable gap between their thoughts and reality. During the last two years, Golan and Raphael consistently received high marks from the Irish, Spanish, and Dutch popular vote. That shines a light on the diversity of opinion within the boycott countries. Strong support for Israel stems from sympathy for Israel, the quality of the Israeli entries, respect for the way Golan and Raphael have conducted themselves, interest in their individual background stories, and probably a dose of resentment. The desire to send a signal to broadcasters and juries who have opposing views cannot be ignored. However, the attitude of the broadcasters who decided to demand Israel’s expulsion, despite these uncomfortable results and now have decided to boycott next year’s edition demonstrates a refusal to accept the plurality of opinions; the fact is that not everyone shares their opinion of Israel. Quite disturbingly, it seems to have devolved into a prestige issue. The broadcasters, twice being humiliated by their own viewers, are doubling down on their campaign. What makes it even more comical is that a country such as Spain is one of the so-called “Big Five,” members whose financial contributions exceed those of others, granting them the privilege to automatically qualify for the finals each year. This is a clear example of unfair competition, yet very few Eurovision fans seem to have anything to say about that.

Nonetheless, heavy criticism erupted, after it became public that President Isaac Herzog had embarked on a lobbying effort to keep Israel in Eurovision. Yet, the same countries that decried the use of political lobbying seem to be forgetting that they used similar tactics. How else should we qualify their campaign which started after Yuval Raphael’s successful performance, the attempt to lobby with other broadcasters for a vote on Israel’s exclusion, and now the boycott, which is certainly imposed to exert maximum pressure on the EBU and strives to convince more countries to join them? Moreover, the anti-Israel boycott movement was not created yesterday, for years several countries have expressed their discontent about Israeli participation. Now, they are trying to seize the momentum, regardless of the opinions of many of their own compatriots.

So, this is a song contest, where examples abound of juries giving high marks to neighboring countries for decades; where the definition of Europe has always been confusing; where public broadcasters stage boycott campaigns, while pretending to defend the contest’s apolitical nature; where international politics plays an important role and always has; where contestants throughout the years have made political statements.

In the case of Eurovision, politics always has a part to play.