Mari Pudas
Israel will definitely be seen at Eurovision, writes journalist Mari Pudas.
Noa Kirel represented Israel at the Spring Games in Liverpool. PDO
Israel’s participation in Eurovision has been questioned evenly and unevenly over the decades. This year, due to the situation in Gaza, more critical voices have been heard than before, and many Finns are demanding that Israel be removed from their visas.
Appeals are futile. Israel will certainly be seen at the spring Eurovision in Malmö. Only Israel’s own decision can change the situation.
The European Broadcasting Company EBU does not want to kick Israel out of the EBU or the visas. Financially, the decision is influenced by the fact that the main partner of Eurovision is Moroccan oil, which is owned by Israel Carmen Talin founded by a company whose products are manufactured in Israel. The brand has been on the boycott list of many consumers for years.
If Israel were to be pampered, would Moroccanoil continue as the main partner? Hardly. The financial losses would be enormous.
Producer of the new music competition Anssi Autio commented earlier in the fall to Iltalehti that the EBU will make its own decisions regarding sponsors, after this Yle will decide on Finland’s participation.
The decision is that Finland will compete in the visas even though Israel and Moroccanoil are participating.
Yleisradio’s head of creative content and media Ville Vilén says now in Helsingin Sanomat I even received messages calling for Finland’s withdrawal from Eurovision. Vilén doubted the authenticity of the messages in HS, and said that Yle is focusing on UMK, where Finland’s visa representative is elected.
– That’s the first thing we think about, and things like this don’t affect it at all. It’s a long way to Eurovision, almost half a year. Those are the competitions organized by the EBU, in which we have decided to participate, and the EBU does look at who is there, Vilén said.
Let’s go back in time about two years, to 2022. Then Yle had another voice on the clock. Yle said the day before UMK that he would leave the Turin visa if Russia is included. Russia had attacked Ukraine a day earlier, on February 24. Yle said that he appealed to the EBU. The EBU, on the other hand, announced during the same day that Russia has no business with visas.
Everyone can wonder if the EBU’s decision came after Yle’s petition or if Yle already knew the EBU’s position when making the petition.
Russia was easy to fall in love with, even the sponsors were not Russian.
There is, of course, a difference between Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the situation in Gaza. The conflict between Hamas and Israel is much more complicated than the war started by Russia in Ukraine.
On the other hand, it is not complicated to say that the EBU has no intention of excluding Israel.
Tail lifting
Two years ago, Yle made the most of the fact that it threatened to leave the visas. Yle raised his tail throughout the year, all the way to the Venla gala, when reminding about it. So it was not a problem for Yle to constantly bring up politics.
The second was the situation at UMK’s press conference on UMK’s finals day in 2022.
“We would like to remind you that UMK is a purely non-political event, so we hope that political questions will be left out of this event,” read the media instructions sent by Yle to journalists.
Of course, we journalists who were there, journalists enjoying freedom of the press, asked what we wanted, including political questions.
Yle therefore acted in a contradictory manner when it made policy on the Russia issue itself, but hoped others would ignore the topic.
Just as certain as the fact that political questions will be asked at February’s UMK is the fact that Israel will participate in Eurovision.