Several activists are demanding Israel out of Eurovision on social media.
Noa Kirel represented Israel in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. PDO
The next Eurovision will be held in May 2024 in Malmö, Sweden. With the conflict in the Middle East, several activists have demanded that Israel should be denied the opportunity to participate in the song contest. There are several campaigns on social media calling for a boycott of Eurovision due to Israel’s participation.
Norwegian activist Ida Helene Benoninen said to the Swede For Sydsvenskan magazine, that it is double standards to exclude Russia, while at the same time Israel is allowed to continue in the competition, even though it violates international law and the UN has also pointed it out. His his video on the subject has collected more than 250,000 views on Tiktok.
Benoninen urges that member countries should not send representatives to Eurovision if Israel participates in the competition. He says that he noticed before the 2022 Eurovision that when the member countries threatened not to send representatives if Russia was allowed to participate, it played a decisive role in excluding Russia from the competition.
Friction in Eurovision
It is not the first time that the conflict in the Middle East has caused friction around Eurovision. When the last time Malmö served as a competition city in 2013, Malmö’s left-wing party wanted to prevent Israel from participating.
Iltalehti previously reported that Malmö’s police spokesman by Nils Norling according to the Gaza war also has an impact on Sweden.
– If we look at the situation in Malmö over the last few months, we notice that the number of hate crimes has increased somewhat. We see demonstrations every day, most of them pro-Palestine. We cannot rule out the possibility that people will try to implement different expressions of opinion, Norling commented.
According to Ruotsalaislehti, the city of Malmö is preparing to organize a safe festival despite the tense security situation in Sweden and the rest of the world. Project manager Karin Karlsson emphasized that the city does not decide who can participate. According to him, there must also be room for demonstrations.
Israel has participated in Eurovision since 1973. It has won the competition four times.
Reported about it Aftonbladetas well as Eurovisionfun website.