{"id":453755,"date":"2026-05-17T17:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453755\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:04:09","slug":"bulgaria-wins-eurovision-song-contest-as-israel-comes-second-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453755\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria wins Eurovision Song Contest as Israel comes second again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bulgaria won the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> for the first time on Saturday in a final overshadowed \u200bby five countries’ boycott over Gaza<\/a>, claiming a dramatic victory despite another big public vote for Israel that again secured it \u200csecond place.<\/p>\n

The garish and usually good-natured competition involving pop acts from countries across Europe and beyond, now in its 70th year, was plunged into crisis by a dispute over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, a response to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n

The public broadcasters of heavyweights Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland, as well as Iceland \u200band Slovenia, chose not to take part in protest at Israel’s participation.<\/p>\n

Israel has alleged a global smear campaign against it. Its performance \u200bat the final was not, however, marred by any obvious protests, unlike Tuesday’s semi-final.<\/p>\n

“This is unbelievable. I don’t even know \u2060what’s going on right now,” Bulgaria’s entrant Dara told a press conference after winning with her thumping, crowd-pleasing dance track “Bangaranga” that avoided politics altogether.<\/p>\n

The \u200bsong touches on themes of empowerment and surrendering to the night. It also left many puzzled as to its meaning.<\/p>\n

“Bangaranga is a feeling that everybody \u200bgets in themselves. It’s the moment that you choose to be in love and not fear,” Dara said when asked to explain the song in the “green room” where artists await the results.<\/p>\n

“This is a special energy … Once you feel (at) one with nature and your universe, you feel the harmony that you can be whatever you want to \u200bbe and that everything is possible,” she said.<\/p>\n

Boos heard at Israel’s result<\/p>\n

\"NoamNoam Bettan representing Israel, during the grand final for the Eurovision Song Contest in the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria. Picture: Ian West\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Israel’s effort, trilingual love song “Michelle”, stirred less controversy than its entry last \u200byear, which was sung by a survivor of the October 7 attack.<\/p>\n

Some booing from the audience was audible when Israel’s massive points haul from the public vote sent \u200cit surging \u2060up the table from eighth place, similarly to 2025, when it also finished second but much closer to the winner than this year.<\/p>\n

Israeli public broadcaster KAN received a formal warning from organisers a week ago over videos posted online in which Bettan courted votes too aggressively, after a similar controversy involving Israel last year.<\/p>\n

KAN said it plays by the rules and the videos were immediately taken down.<\/p>\n

Finland’s entry, “Liekinheitin,” or Flamethrower, a love song in Finnish featuring violinist \u200bLinda Lampenius and pop singer Pete Parkkonen \u200bon a burning set, was \u2060the favourite this year, followed by Australia’s “Eclipse”, a celestially themed love ballad sung by national pop star Delta Goodrem.<\/p>\n

In the end, Australia came fourth and Finland sixth.<\/p>\n

Minor protests in Vienna<\/p>\n

At least 1,200 people were killed in \u200bthe October 7 attack, most of them civilians. Israel responded by launching an assault on the enclave that \u200bhas killed more than \u206072,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left much of Gaza in ruins.<\/p>\n

The boycotts cut the number of contest entries to 35, the fewest since 2003, which will almost certainly have reduced the global television viewership of an event that last year was estimated at 166m people, more than the Super Bowl’s 128 million.<\/p>\n

The \u2060mood in \u200bthe Austrian capital has been subdued, with protests over Israel’s participation drawing only small crowds. \u200bPolice anticipated “blockades and disruption attempts” on Saturday that did not materialise.<\/p>\n

There was a brief disruption during Tuesday’s semi-final, when one protester chanted “Stop, stop the genocide” and “Free, free Palestine” within range of a \u200btelevision microphone and was ejected along with three others for disrupting the show.<\/p>\n

\n – Reuters\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulgaria won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time on Saturday in a final overshadowed \u200bby five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4712,93,17948,61,60],"class_list":["post-453755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-israel-palestine","tag-entertainment","tag-eurovision","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453755","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=453755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}