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Just when they thought that Eurovision had reached the top absurdity-with its glittering clichés, unusual texts and performances that make their local karaoke night look even lower in 2025. This year, Israel not only took part with his ongoing attack on Gaza and international law.
In the run -up to the competition, activists across Europe demanded that Israel exclude. 22 former Eurovision participants signed an open letter in which Israel and his national broadcaster is to be banned. Protests, petitions and campaigns swept over the continent and asked the competition to maintain its supposed values of “European unity and culture” instead of addressing a state that is accused of starving and bombing a prisoner population of two million.
But Eurovision did not listen.
Instead, it handed over the stage to 24-year-old Yuval Raphael-a survivor of Hamas attack on the Nova Music Festival, who won the public television in most countries and took second place overall just because in contrast to most professional juries, Austria’s entry.
Understandably, Israel’s surprising almost triggered a wave of counter -reactions. With populations, which were criticized in their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza-Stripes and most loud, widespread allegations of the voice equipment were made the highest grades. National radio operators in Spain and Belgium submitted formal complaints to the European Broadcasting Union and called for an investigation to manipulate the televoting system. In the meantime, the intercept audio analysis showed that the organizers of Eurovision had boosted the audience while Raphael’s live performance and hidden “Free Palestine”.
After this year’s competition, the demands for Israel’s exclusion from Eurovision are louder than ever. For many in Europe who love Eurovision – whether for its warehouse, spectacle or nostalgic charm – but are also interested in international law and the life of Palestinian life, Israel’s continued inclusion is a moral failure.
And yet I believe that Israel belongs in Eurovision and should remain in competition in the future. Here is the reason.
On the one hand, the persistent participation of Israel would reflect the reality of European politics. Despite the increasing outrage of the public, many European leaders have steadfastly steadfastly for Israel during their devastating campaign in Gaza. While countries such as Spain and the Republic of Ireland demanded a re -evaluation of the relationship between the European Union and Israel for most of Europe, it was business as usual.
In February 2025, the European Foreign Minister met despite the increasing pressure by human rights groups with their Israeli counterpart and insisted that “political and economic ties are still strong”. A few months later, seven EU countries gave a joint explanation in which an end to what they described as “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza. But without action, these words rang hollow.
Europe is also divided whether it would honor the international criminal court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain stated that they would follow. The United Kingdom hed as usual and only said that it would “comply with the legal obligations according to domestic and international law”. In the meantime, Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban Rundweg, refused to enforce the arrest warrant. And among the largest players in Europe – France, Germany and Italy – the reaction ranges from alternative to a complete dismissal. France claimed Netanyahu enjoyed immunity because Israel is not an ICC member. Italy said the arrest was “not feasible”; And Germany’s newly elected Chancellor Friedrich Merz even swore to visit Netanyahu.
In view of the fact that the European leaders have shown far more enthusiasm for the fact that it is Palestine -Solidarity activists to be accountable as Israel, it only feels appropriate that Israel continues to sing and dance on the ruins of Palestinian life – hand in hand with his European friends.
But this alliance is not just political. Those who promote it indicate that it is also culturally and even “civilizational”.
Many western intellectuals have long occupied Israel as an outpost of European values in a supposedly wild region. After October 7, this story was renewed with fresh urgency. French public intellectual Bernard-Henri-Levy, while he insists on being a “militant defender of human rights”, foreign Israel apartheid And everything – as a moral beacon compared to the usual “others”: Russians, Turks, Chinese, Persians and Arabs. Their imperial ambitions, he argued, present a much greater threat to “civilization” as Israel’s “Politics of the Colonization of the West Bank”. He even praised Israel’s “moral steadfastness” and had to worry about civilian life in Gaza Strip – words that were not well aged after 19 months of pure slaughter.
The book by the American commentator Josh Hammer, Israel and civilization: The fate of the Jewish nation and the fate of the West is even clearer. For him, Israel is the “agent” of the West in a region that is plagued by violence and Islamic “terrorism”. According to him, those who support the Palestinian rights are “anti-American, anti-western jackals”. The British commentator Douglas Murray reflects the same civilizational framework in the book on democracies and death cultures: Israel and the future of civilization and describes Israel as a bulwark of good in a world of evil.
Israeli leaders have also taken over this language. Shortly after October 7, Netanyahu said that “Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization” and asked the West to show “moral clarity”. After this worldview, Israel not only defends itself – it defends the entire western civilization.
All of this may sound far from a song competition. But Eurovision was always more than sequins and important changes. It is a projection of “Europeanity” and “Europe” as a concept has always been political. It is based on a colonial heritage that Europe is enlightened, tidy and rationally presented in contrast to the supposedly backward, emotional and irrational non-European “others”.
This legacy justified colonial conquests and the violent suppression of anti -colonial uprisings. Massaks were cast as a price for restoring the order; Ethnic cleansing, a civilizing mission. Today the same story lives in the way the West uses Israel – as a distressed democracy that is courageous against barbarism.
If people are prohibited from Eurovision after the ban on this year’s allegations of voting, I can not consider irony other than the irony: that his genocide campaign in Gaza has not exceeded a red line for Europe-but it simply liked fraud in a song competition.
If Eurovision would leave Israel now, it would be the hardest punishment that the continent of the nation has ever imposed – and it would not be for mass murder, but for interference in pop music.
And so, yes – I think Israel should stay in Eurovision.
After all, Europe and Israel earn each other.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazera.