{"id":175314,"date":"2025-12-04T20:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175314\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:00:07","slug":"ireland-will-not-partake-in-next-eurovision-song-contest-due-to-israels-inclusion-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175314\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland will not partake in next Eurovision Song Contest due to Israel\u2019s inclusion \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland will not participate in next year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurovision\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/eurovision\">Eurovision Song Contest<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rte\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/rte\">RT\u00c9<\/a> will not broadcast the event, after it was confirmed by the organiser that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel\">Israel<\/a> can partake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At a meeting in Geneva on Thursday, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs the competition, decided a vote was not required on Israel\u2019s inclusion in the 2026 event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">RT\u00c9 and some other European public broadcasters had committed earlier this year to pulling out of the contest if Israel was to be included. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a statement on Thursday, RT\u00c9 said its position \u201cremains unchanged\u201d following the EBU decision. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cRT\u00c9 will not participate in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, nor will RT\u00c9 broadcast the competition,\u201d the broadcaster said. Ireland\u2019s participation \u201cremains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there\u201d, RT\u00c9 said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cRT\u00c9 remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Israel\u2019s participation in the annual song contest has been a source of criticism from pro-Palestinian activists in recent years due to Israel\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel-hamas-conflict\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/israel-hamas-conflict\" target=\"_blank\">assault on Gaza<\/a> since the October 7th attacks by Hamas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the wake of the EBU decision, public broadcasters in Spain and the Netherlands confirmed they will be boycotting the event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Israel\u2019s president Isaac Herzog said he hopes the contest will continue to champion culture, music and friendship between nations. \u2014Additional reporting Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland will not participate in next year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest, and RT\u00c9 will not broadcast the event, after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17948,42,43,6085,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-175314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-eurovision","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-rte","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175314","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=175314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}