The Eurovision Song Contest, or simply Eurovision, is, as the name suggests, an event that dates back to 1956, where countries throughout Europe vie for the honor of being the top European artist/group of the year. There have been a lot of good performances from a variety of countries. For me, one of the best performances came from Sieneke, representing The Netherlands with her very Dutch song Ik Ben Verliefd.
YouTube is full of performances from people representing countries throughout the continent. Each year, the country that wins hosts the next year’s contest. It’s not even time for qualifying for the 2026 contest and there’s already drama surrounding one country: Israel. That country’s been causing problems for quite some time now.
A lot of countries support Israel’s participation, while quite a few are boycotting and will apparently not allow their performers to compete when the contest is hosted in Austria, a country that supports Israel, a clear terrorist nation. My ancestral home of The Netherlands is currently not performing, and they are not alone. Ireland, Spain and Slovenia are among those who will bow out unless Israel is barred.
I am proud of my ancestral family’s land for standing up for what’s right.
The countries who are bowing out are not doing so due to bigotry as some are claiming. No, their concern is that they value peace, something that Israel clearly hates. Keeping this in mind, perhaps all countries should take a knee until Israel is banished.
Israel has performed in the contest since 1973 and it is allowed to participate even though it’s clearly not a European country. This is because there country is for some reason a member of the European Broadcasting Union. It’s high time to close that loophole.
A “country,” for Eurovision’s purposes, is a participant represented by a broadcaster that is a member of EBU. That makes sense, but what does not make sense is why the EBU would have anything to do with Israel in the first place.
You can do your own research into how the contest works, but it is really quite unique. It’s best known for voting nations to “phone in” to the contest to announce how it’s allocating its points, determined by the number of votes from fans in that nation.
“Hello, Eurovision! It’s Amsterdam calling!” You’ll hear that throughout the finals and it of course dates back to the days when countries would literally phone their results in. Now, of course, each country chooses a representative who is shown via satellite. That representative is usually affiliated with that nation’s representative broadcaster.
Apparently, meetings are being held to decide whether or not to allow a vote to decide Israel’s fate in 2026, but this is an important decision that must be made now, not later. It’s time to show Israel that the country is not welcome anywhere by anyone, at least not until they become a peaceful nation, something that they clearly know nothing of.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I am hopeful that Israel will be given the boot so that countries that truly are part of Europe can participate in a truly European contest.