{"id":26368,"date":"2025-09-17T04:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/26368\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T04:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:50:12","slug":"spain-becomes-first-of-big-five-to-commit-to-boycott-if-israel-takes-part-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/26368\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain becomes first of \u2018Big Five\u2019 to commit to boycott if Israel takes part \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish state<\/a> broadcaster RTVE\u2019s board voted on Tuesday to withdraw from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> to be held in May in Vienna if Israel<\/a> takes part in the event.<\/p>\n

Spain is the fifth country to make such a pledge after Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland, and the first of the so-called Big Five \u2013 a group that also includes Britain, Germany, Italy and France. These countries automatically qualify for the contest\u2019s final round.<\/p>\n

Last week RT\u00c9 said it would pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest next year if Israel participates.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued on September 11th, the broadcaster confirmed the decision on the issue, which director general Kevin Bakhurst first raised with the European Broadcasting Union earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The Spanish measure, proposed by RTVE president Jose Pablo Lopez, garnered 10 votes in favour, four against and one abstention in the 15-member board, the broadcaster said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Eurovision, which stresses its political neutrality, has faced controversy this year linked to the war in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several countries had urged the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public broadcasters that organises and co-produces the annual event, to exclude Israel from the 2025 edition. Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael ended up finishing second.<\/p>\n

Austrian singer JJ, who won this year, has also called for Israel\u2019s exclusion in 2026. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s participation in the annual song contest has been a source of criticism from pro-Palestinian activists in recent years as the assault on Gaza<\/a> begun after the October 7th attacks on Israel by Hamas have continued and intensified. \u2212 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish state broadcaster RTVE\u2019s board voted on Tuesday to withdraw from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,17948,61,60,3410,3411,2846],"class_list":["post-26368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-eurovision","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-israel-hamas-conflict","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26368","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=26368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}