Artists and musicians in Sweden, Iceland and Finland had petitioned the European Broadcasting Union to exclude Israel over its atrocities in Gaza
Israel can compete in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, organisers confirmed on Thursday, again rejecting calls for it to be excluded over the Gaza war like Russia was after invading Ukraine.
On Wednesday, a group of 400 celebrities including British actress Helen Mirren, British singer Boy George and former Kiss frontman Gene Simmons published an open letter supporting Eurovision’s decision to maintain Israel’s participation.
The letter was issued in response to petitions calling for Israel to be kicked out of the world’s biggest live music event, which is being held in Malmo, Sweden, in May.
Approached by AFP, the European Broadcasting Union said it had conducted a review and decided late last year that Israel could participate in the kitsch annual pop extravaganza.
“The Eurovision Song Contest is a non-political music event and a competition between public service broadcasters who are members of the EBU. It is not a contest between governments,” EBU director general Noel Curran said, reiterating a statement made in January.
read more: https://www.newarab.com/news/eurovision-confirms-israel-can-compete
Awesome organized movement in malmoe looking forward to Eurovision being completely shut down
Oh good, I was so worried they might have to suffer sitting out fucking Eurovision. Can you even imagine the damage that might cause them?
“non-political music event” absolute poppycock, it has always been a political event.
As others have said, I don’t like this “it’s cool if people we are in bed with do the genocide” attitude.
Zionism and Nazism have more in common that just the Z.
Eurovision shaping up to be a shit show then.
Wonder if Israel will send something as bad as that incel song of theirs that has death threats against Mia Khalifa and Dua Lipa.
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A non-political event, eh? Interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/dec/30/eurovision-chief-russia-ban-stands-for-ultimate-values-democracy.
So, who are they sending? Ness and Stilla?
If countries disagree they should boycott. At minimum bring some Palestinian flags
In 2019 when Eurovision was in Israel, Icelandic band Hatari was fined and harassed for displaying the Palestinian flags.
It’ll apparently be in Malmö this year, so it’ll probably be the other way around now.
Idk, considering EBU clearly shown their preference as in the OP.
Fucking disgusting.
Not to mention, they kicked out Russia for the war in Ukraine
“We’re not political, unless we choose to be…”
On Wednesday, a group of 400 celebrities including British actress Helen Mirren, British singer Boy George and former Kiss frontman Gene Simmons published an open letter supporting Eurovision’s decision to maintain Israel’s participation.
First of all, fuck those 3 with rusty rail spikes for their genocide denial and active support for the fascist apartheid regime committing it. They’re dead to me.
Second of all, does anyone have a list of the other 397 hateful or at the very least wilfully ignorant beasts?
This is a list of nobodies lmao, they really couldn’t do better than this?
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So what we learn is that as long as it’s an ally of the west doing the genocide, they are still welcome to have a big party with us.
Also doing proper genocide is bonus points.
Well, yeah… the Bush admin lied about WMD’s and led dozens of western democracies into Iraq because of it — Bush, and many members of the US gov/intelligence/military complex, should be in prison for war crimes.
Not to mention that they had already stolen the 2000 election via corruption.
Most of history was written by criminals. That’s why shit’s fucked yo!
Disgusting.
Can the United States compete too?
If it becomes popular enough to attract a lot of American viewership, then probably 🤷
They should enter with that fucked up kid’s song of theirs about killing everyone in Gaza
Fuck Eurovision then.