United by Music, Divided on Campus
Last year, conversations about Eurovision on UK university campuses stopped being about celebrating music and became a platform for anti-Israel hatred. It seems that this year won’t be very different.
As president of my university’s Eurovision Society, I found myself in a lonely position ahead of the 2025 contest in Basel. Across the country, Eurovision societies signed a petition calling for Israel’s exclusion, and some actively encouraged turning off the broadcast during Israel’s performance. The message was clear: an Israeli artist had no place in spaces supposedly dedicated to celebrating international music and culture. Ours was the only society we knew of that refused to sign. We kept the TV on, watched every act, and judged the songs on their merit.
This wasn’t about taking a side in the complex realities of the Middle East. It was about defending the principle that gave Eurovision its name: “United by Music.”
Since my peers seem to have forgotten, the Eurovision Song Contest was created in the aftermath of World War II to foster connection and shared cultural experience when politics had torn the continent apart. The European Broadcasting Union has consistently presented it as a non-political platform. Artists compete with songs, not foreign policy records.
Israel’s Yuval Raphael performed the ballad New Day Will Rise. A survivor of the Nova music festival attack, she delivered a performance of resilience and hope with no overt political messaging. The song focused on renewal and a better tomorrow and earned a strong second place, winning the public televote with 297 points. Audiences across Europe responded to the music.
Yet for many student societies, the performance was unacceptable from the start. Some groups framed simply watching an Israeli artist as complicity.
As we approach the 2026 contest, similar discourse is already returning. Last year’s conversations about Eurovision on UK university campuses stopped being about celebrating music and became a platform for anti-Israel hatred – and it seems this year won’t be very different.
Eurovision has always been an exercise in international cultural exchange. Countries with difficult histories and ongoing tensions still send artists who all share the same stage as equals, not treated as being personally responsible for the acts of their countries’ governments. The rules explicitly limit political messaging precisely to protect this space.
When student groups treat artists from certain nations as morally disqualified by nationality alone, they abandon the idea that cultural participation should be universal. Instead, inclusion becomes conditional, extended only to those who pass an ideological litmus test.
This shift transforms art itself into ideological compliance. Rather than engaging with a song on its artistic merits, the focus shifts to the artist’s passport and the perceived actions of their government, and, as it seems, has enabled students to do the same to their peers suspected of similar crimes of identity. It’s hard to miss the hypocrisy behind anti-Israel Eurovision fan protests who also claim to champion diversity, multiculturalism, and cross-cultural dialogue. This is not harmless student activism. Instead of fostering dialogue or coexistence, they are actively creating new lines of division on campus and beyond.
Our society chose a different path last year and will do so again for 2026.
We believe students who claim to love the contest have a responsibility to protect its spirit from excessive politicisation.
In an era of deepening campus polarisation, preserving even one space where universal principles still apply matters. “United by Music” should not become an empty slogan, discarded the moment politics becomes uncomfortable. If we abandon it, we don’t just lose a fun annual contest; we lose a rare cultural arena where people from across divides can still meet on equal, artistic terms.
Treating Israeli contestants as lepers while claiming to stand for inclusion is dangerous and follows a pattern in European history all too familiar to Jews. UK university Eurovision societies cannot continue their attempts to silence performers or their fans. Commit instead to displaying every country’s contestant with the same enthusiasm and respect. Celebrate the music wherever it comes from. Reject the narrowing of acceptable participation based on identity or politics.
True unity through music requires the courage to keep the stage and the screen open to all.
