{"id":174401,"date":"2025-12-04T08:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174401\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T08:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:45:08","slug":"eurovision-organisers-set-to-consider-israel-participation-amid-boycott-threats-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174401\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision organisers set to consider Israel participation amid boycott threats \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Members of the body \u200bthat organises the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurovision\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurovision\/\">Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> will meet on Thursday to discuss and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/media\/2025\/09\/26\/european-broadcasters-to-vote-on-expelling-israel-from-eurovision-2026\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/media\/2025\/09\/26\/european-broadcasters-to-vote-on-expelling-israel-from-eurovision-2026\/\">potentially vote<\/a> on \u200dwhether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\/\" target=\"_blank\">Israel<\/a> can compete next year, as some countries threaten to withdraw if it is not excluded \u200dover the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel-hamas-conflict\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel-hamas-conflict\/\">Gaza war<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The meeting at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) headquarters in Geneva will address new rules intended to discourage governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to sway \u200cvoters, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/2025\/11\/21\/eurovision-song-contest-changes-voting-rules-after-concern-about-israels-result\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/2025\/11\/21\/eurovision-song-contest-changes-voting-rules-after-concern-about-israels-result\/\">following allegations that Israel unfairly boosted its entrant<\/a> to the contest this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Israel, which came \u2060second in the contest, has not responded to these accusations, but frequently \u200cargues \u200bit \u200dhas faced a global smear campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The contest faces a \u201cwatershed moment\u201d, said Eurovision expert Paul Jordan. Public broadcasters from Slovenia, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands are threatening to boycott the May 2026 \u2060event, to be hosted by Austria, if Israel is allowed to compete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Critics of \u2060Israel\u2019s participation cite concerns over \u2060the Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which has surpassed 70,000, according to Gaza health authorities. The war was sparked by the October \u200d7th, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">If members are not convinced that the new rules, which aim to protect the contest\u2019s neutrality and impartiality, are adequate, there will be a vote on participation, the EBU said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Germany could withdraw and not \u200cbroadcast Eurovision if Israel is \u200cnot allowed to participate, a broadcasting industry source told Reuters. German broadcaster ARD did not comment. Austrian host broadcaster ORF wants Israel \u200cto compete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Israeli public broadcaster KAN said it is preparing for next year\u2019s contest and will \u2060soon release changes to its selection process for choosing Israel\u2019s entry. KAN said it will present its position on possible disqualification at the meeting. \u2013 Reuters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the body \u200bthat organises the Eurovision Song Contest will meet on Thursday to discuss and potentially&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,17948,61,60,3410,3411,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-174401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-eurovision","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}