8 Ways Eurovision is Rigged for Israel

An exciting, fun video spilling the T on Eurovision! Woohoo! Yes, so fun! #unitedbymusic #esc2025

A video by Ada Černoša and Verity Ritchie.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:53 Political song
4:29 Disrepute
5:18 Instrumentalising Eurovision
5:39 Backstage behavior
6:20 Media freedom
7:02 Censoring audience
7:38 Astroturfed televote
8:44 Censoring participants
9:22 Conclusion

[ashfromthesky]

The idea of Eurovision being non-political has never made sense to me cause even just our base understanding of a “European identity” is based on this notion of a shared European culture, which is inherently political, not just geographical.

[NateOwen]

So weird how a European music contest is rigged for a non-European country

[hiboucle.]

Trying to keep a singing competition, non political is stupid beyond belief. Art is political in itself no matter how hard you try to sterilize it.
"In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent."
– Marwan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

[cybersblanq]

Sure love how "no politics" almost always benefits the oppressors :/

[eo-gj]

EBU didn’t kick russia out of Eurovision, it was because 10+ countries decided to boycott if russia participated. Curious why they didn’t do it this time though…

[yaovek]

Hey, I'm a Russian eurofan. In 2022 EBU wasn't going to kick out Russia and that was the original statement till other broadcasters threatened to leave the contest in the case of Russian participation. So, the question is, why other broadcasters now don't threat the same now

[julian_pat]

As a Malmo citizen, experiencing Eurovision happening here was insane. I have never seen so many police in one city at a time; military helicopters were flying over my house all the time, snipers on the rooftops, and so much more. Malmo is known in Sweden as "the immigrant city, " and the pro-Palestine movement is huge here, hence all the "extra security measures" - there was an expectation that some protesters might cause a terrorist attack. Additionally, a lot of pro-Palestine street art was painted over before Eurovision, but the city fought against it with massive protests, putting out Palestinian flags, new street art and more.

[FaunOfTheDevil]

As a Jew, Israel's insistance on decrying all criticism as antisemitism disgusts me. A genocide is a genocide. When you grow up in the shadow of the Holocaust, the mantra "never again" is brought up in answer to the photos and records of unfathomable tragedy.

What was all of that Holocaust education for if not the ability to see the signs and speak up before it is too late for somebody else?

[Dervis]

It is absolutely disgusting that someone gets twirl around the Israeli flag on stage while someone gets their nails banned for having a pattern that's sort of similar to something that might represent an oppressed nation. Israel absolutely needs to be banned for Eurovision to have any shred of credibility.

[_.equilibrium_]

I feel the need to mention Eric Saade (a Swedish-Palestinian singer) who opened the competition last year wore a keffiyeh on his hand which was censored

[basj]

A small tidbit of info as someone who has worked with delegations in the past, the contracts the artists sign often contain clauses for significant monetary penalizations in case of breach, and sometimes they also contain NDAS. It is not consistent across all delegations but I think is important information to consider when assessing the pro-Palestinians artists behavior.

[ines.filipa.santos]

Iolanda's Palestinian flag nails were also censored. On the official ESC Youtube channel they put up the video of her semi final performance instead of the video from the final one to try and hide the nails, but people noticed it. They've changed it in the meantime because of the outrage.

[TheUnemployedMigrant]

Let's not forget the ridiculous expansion of the televote. Why can you vote 20 times? Who will? Only those desperate to win.

[AinoHiat]

While many already know this, would also like to point out how all negative comments are deleted from Israel's song on the official Eurovision YT channel. However, saying terrible things about Palestanians seems to be okay... sigh...

[katerrinah]

The sad part is Russia wasn't kicked out for the war (they were originally still going to be in the contest after the invasion) but "bringing the competition into disrepute" because other countries threatened to quit. I think some countries may have done similar here. But as none countries and artists boycotting the event (or do something radical on stage), the EBU will not actually take steps to disqualify Israel and won't take any future threats seriously.

The artists and creatives from last year and going forward who claim to support Palestine but still participate in Eurovision need to reflect on their actions. Israel has no place in the contest, the EBU needs to fix their issues. Last year showed the contest is awful and toxic

[alexwilson]

There's a really great documentary "A Song Called Hate" about Hatari's Eurovision performance that I highly recommend. I think it does a great job of showing how little control the artists have over what they can say or do -- so while I wish that last year's artists were a bit more vocal during the performance, I can understand them trying to thread the needle of being able to perform (as a means to able to have a voice at all) vs. just getting shut out and not being able to say anything.

Glad you mentioned the Moroccan Oil connection, that was something I didn't know and makes so much of last year make more sense. Bashar Murad's attempt to go for Iceland last year also bears mentioning, and is really meaningful given the context in the Hatari film.

[nocturne]

Eric Saade managed to sneak in a Palestine scarf round his wrist in his interwall act. But of course he was severly punished, even if he was only showing his own culture as a person of Palestine ethniticy.

[aceofhearts._.]

It's almost funny how boycotting Eurovision is literally negative effort - you're just pointedly not doing something - and yet I know people will find some way to justify not doing so to themselves. (trying to convince my family atm, my brother was umimpressed with the songs this year which does some of my work for me)

[ExtraInExile]

Martin Österdahl was met with so much booing for being the face of the EBU's pro-Israeli decisions, and the EBU decided to keep him as the executive supervisor despite it all, only adding a new ESC Director role to oversee him. I'm holding my breath hoping that this year the EBU's structural reforms actually make a difference in how the show is handled, but currently it looks like the company is very much stuck in its ways. It's baffling that they're willing to go through all of the backlash just to defend Israel.

[Jstar]

Would like to add that the astroturfing campaign for Israel wasn't just done by Israel itself. At least in my county, the Netherlands, far right politicians like Geert Wilders and Caroline van der Plas tweeted on the night of the final that their followers should vote for Israel even if they weren't actually watching Eurovision. Sure enough, Israel received 12 points from us.