Olio CafeFour countries to boycott Eurovision 2026 as Israel cleared to compete
geneva_conveniencewww.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/dec/04/ir…
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands will boycott next year’s Eurovision after Israel was given the all-clear to compete in the 2026 song contest despite calls by several participating broadcasters for its exclusion over the war in Gaza.
No vote on Israel’s participation was held on Thursday at the general assembly of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the body that organises the hugely popular international annual singing competition.
Instead, participating broadcasters voted only to introduce new rules designed to stop governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to influence voters.
Yeah, “we didn’t vote because most of us didn’t think it was necessary” is some Israeli hasbara level bullshit! 🤦🤬
Oh, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if a lot of national delegates quietly and behind closed doors expressed a will for there not to be a public vote, since they did not want it their support for the Genocidal state of Israel to be on record and publicly known.
In Politics (and Eurovision is much more Politics than Art) many if not most things are really decided behind closed doors either without a vote or with a rigged vote - politicias abhor transparency and accountability.
I hope the whole thing dies. It’s just bizarre beyond belief that this love fest pride music festival is siding with genocide. It’s disgusting l, sickening.
Genocide doesn’t even enter their vocabulary. They see dollar signs, and Istael has a lot of dollar signs, therefore every other possible action is completely irrelevant.
It’s ideological, it’s not about money. As far as I know the thing is financed transparently.
It’s heavily financed by Israel though.
I didn’t find anything about that. It seems that Israel doesn’t finance it any more than any other country.
They probably mean that Moroccanoil (an Israeli-owned company that makes hair oil) is a main sponsor of Eurovision.
Not at all, they’re paying relative to the number of inhabitants.
Rare win for my country on the issue of Gaza. Disappointing EBU are letting Israel compete.
Which one?
Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands (so far) to hold the all new “euramazing competition”
Showcasing undiscovered talent and theatrics from European countries, without exception to prevent any bullshit further down the line.
Not European?
Fuck off.
Okay but change European to the whole continent.
Restrictions apply*.
*
Genociders not allowed.
So there’s different definitions of the word. In my language, there’s two separate words. There’s the more political one that has Europe and Asia separate, but the Americas together and then the one that more accurately reflects geography, where the Americas are two continents, but Eurasia is one.
Every country should boycott it
Sadly, they are just for. Forty would have been better.
Good for the four countries.
“Instead, participating broadcasters voted only to introduce new rules designed to stop governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to influence voters.”
This is because on top of the genocide Israel also cheat on the popular vote.
I’m betting that number is gonna rise
Only 4 countries are boycotting israel in a music festival, and this is after seeing israel real face for what? 2 years? Now that “they are in peace” i wouldnt expect the number to go up
The countries should all state they are ending their boycott with the statement of “we are back in, and we will definitely not be singing about how all israeli’s are murderous genocidal war mongers ;-);-). See you there.”
Honest question from a USian: is the Eurovision competition honestly a big thing with most people or is this hyped up by the media? For example, is this basically like America’s Got Talent, about which no one I know cares, or is this actually a big deal with the common pleb?
Yes and No. There are certainly people in the common pleb that love Eurovision, I’m personally not that into it. It’s every single year. It gets old quick. IMO, if they made it a bi-yearly thing, people might be a bit more excited about it. But that’s another discussion.
Either you seem to be really loving eurovision, or you seem to have had enough of it for a lifetime. So I think it’s a very divided 50/50 split, probably varies from year to year depending on whatever song your country picked. I haven’t really watched it in 15 years or so, these days the songs are out on Youtube pretty quickly, so even if there’s an artist I like, I’d just listen to their song individually rather than sitting through an hour long broadcast.
Sometimes there are some solid songs I enjoy, Maybe wouldn’t put it on deliberately but if it came on the radio i might bob my head to it.
Personally, I think the greatest song ever produced for Eurovision was made as a half-time joke by a bunch of comedians, and thus, wasn’t an actual entry into the competition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ozCWyUlCg
Grotesco could easily win Eurovision if they ever cared to enter. So many of their songs live rent-free in Swedish people’s heads and this is hardly even top 10.
Yeah, the amount of TV time spent on it is similar to the amount of TV time spent covering the European or World Football (soccer for Americans) Championships.
I suspect that without that overboard TV coverage almost literally shoving it down viewers throats, most people would forget about it.
It’s a big deal! I’m also an American but I work as a travel advisor. When I ask European colleagues, it’s about 50/50 people who love it or hate it. But everyone knows about it! I get a lot of “oh my mom still watches that” so maybe not as popular with younger people, lol.
Even for USians it’s pretty common to be flooded with Eurovision news on papers like TheGuardian. It feels like the only reason people care is because the media keeps covering it and thus people “have to see the thing everyone is talking about.”
I’m not European, but from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of media coverage. You can’t spend 2 seconds on the mainstream music side of the internet without hearing something from the contest.
C’mon UK - do something.
The UK is owned by israel
Damn I keep wanting to go too.