{"id":180090,"date":"2025-12-12T03:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/180090\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T03:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:13:13","slug":"eurovision-winner-nemo-to-return-trophy-in-protest-of-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/180090\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision Winner Nemo to Return Trophy in Protest of Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNemo, the Swiss artist who won Eurovision 2024<\/a>, announced on Thursday that they would return the trophy in protest of Israel\u2019s participation in next year\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEurovision<\/a> says it stands for unity, inclusion, and dignity for all,\u201d they wrote on Instagram. \u201cThose values made this contest meaningful to me. But Israel\u2019s participation, during what the UN\u2019s Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded to be a genocide<\/a>, shows a clear conflict between those ideals and the decisions made by the EBU [European Broadcasting Union]. \u2026 I\u2019m sending my trophy back to the EBU headquarters in Geneva.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLast week, the EBU announced that it would not hold a vote<\/a> on whether to ban Israel from competing, as constituents from some countries criticized the country\u2019s role in its war with Hamas, thus allowing the country to submit a contestant. Organizers said it would instead implement \u201cadditional safeguards\u201d to keep governments and third parties from influencing the results of the competition. Some broadcasters had accused Israel of using those methods to pave the way for its 2025 competitor, Yuval Raphael, to win this year\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a result of the decision, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia all immediately announced that they would not participate in the 2026 contest. Iceland later joined them in the boycott. Ireland\u2019s broadcaster, RT\u00c9, stated that its participation was \u201cunconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf the values we celebrate onstage aren\u2019t lived offstage, then even the most beautiful songs lose their meaning,\u201d Nemo wrote in their statement. \u201cI\u2019m waiting for the moment when those words and actions align. Until then, this trophy is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for the EBU did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tNemo won the 2024 contest with a performance of \u201cThe Code\u201d; they were the first openly nonbinary person to win the contest.<\/p>\n

\n\tEurovision has been an event in Europe since 1956. Last year\u2019s Eurovision attracted an estimated 166 million viewers worldwide. Next year\u2019s will take place in May in Vienna, Austria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nemo, the Swiss artist who won Eurovision 2024, announced on Thursday that they would return the trophy in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10495,105138,10570,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-180090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-eurovision","9":"tag-eurovision-2024","10":"tag-eurovision-song-contest","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}