{"id":222217,"date":"2026-01-05T20:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/222217\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:25:10","slug":"the-case-for-expelling-israel-from-eurovision-peoples-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/222217\/","title":{"rendered":"The case for expelling Israel from Eurovision \u2013 People’s World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The\t<\/p>\n

JJ, from Austria, stands on the stage with his trophy after winning the Grand Final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, May 18, 2025.| Martin Meissner\/AP<\/p>\n

The term \u201chypocrisy\u201d is the most convenient, but certainly not the most apt, to describe the inclusion<\/a> of Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026.<\/p>\n

We must search for other terms that could possibly explain why a country that has just committed one of the most horrific genocides in modern history is celebrated as a hub for culture, art, and music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComplicity\u201d is a possible alternative, though still not enough to fully explain the West\u2019s insistence on whitewashing the Israeli genocide<\/a> against the Palestinian people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of those protesting Israel\u2019s inclusion in the competition, which typically attracts tens of millions of viewers worldwide, rightly note that Russia was expelled<\/a> within 36 hours after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Russian example does not stop at Eurovision. Thousands of such sanctions have been slapped against Moscow in every possible field, from politics to the economy to sports, culture, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even now, thousands of sanctions<\/a> later, European officials are still mulling over or carrying out yet more sanctions. Europe is never satisfied when it comes to punishing Russia or any country that orbits outside its political sphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But is Israel a European country? Answering this question requires that we deeply appreciate the profound and sinister relationship between Israel and the West in general, and Israel and Europe in particular.<\/p>\n

Israel is a European offspring, the hideous creation of Western imperialism and colonialism. It is settler-colonialism<\/a> in its ugliest manifestation, where the natives are not even allowed to serve the role of the inferior, the collective servant of Westerners and their fraudulently superior culture. In the Israeli settler-colonial model, Palestinians are to be eliminated, as exemplified by David Ben-Gurion, the primary architect of the Zionist project in Palestine and the first prime minister of Israel, when he stated<\/a> that \u201cthe Arabs must go (or \u201cwe must expel the Arabs\u201d<\/a>), but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.\u201d<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s assume, for the sake of the argument, that the West has been fooled by Israel\u2019s repeated claims of democracy, equality, and civilization. What justification does Europe have now as it continues to embrace Israel in every possible field, including that of culture and music?<\/p>\n

We still do not fully grasp the number of Palestinians massacred by Israeli hands and Western weapon technology, simply because thousands of Palestinian bodies remain trapped<\/a> under the rubble of their own homes, schools, and hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most modest estimation tells us that over 71,000 people have been killed<\/a> and over 171,000 have been wounded<\/a>. These numbers do not include the many thousands who remain missing or those killed by famine, curable diseases, polluted waters, and the like.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The West knows all of this, not only because, like the rest of us, they have been watching the world\u2019s first livestream genocide, but because they own the very satellites that provided the information to Israel, the murder weapon that Israel used, and the political shield they collectively created to protect Tel Aviv.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even those Europeans critical of Israel have not gone far enough, considering that some of them, like top Spanish officials, have already acknowledged that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Yet, no political ties have been fully severed, no total economic sanctions have been imposed, nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) continues to argue<\/a> that \u201cthe Contest should remain a neutral space and must not be instrumentalized.\u201d This is the same argument that the world football federation, FIFA, has used<\/a> repeatedly to shield Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s die-hard support for Israel is not mere hypocrisy motivated by immediate financial interests or simply because, in their twisted view, Palestinian lives are of no value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s ruling elites believe that Israel is one of them; that Israel\u2019s victories and setbacks are their own success and failure. Even when they reprimand Israel, they do so lovingly, gently, as a father reprimanding his own son for behaving against the interests of the family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This maxim, however, does not apply to European societies. Millions of Italians, Irish, French, Spanish, Belgians, and even Germans and Austrians, among other nations, are livid<\/a> about what Israel has done to the Palestinians, and some are angry that it was their own tax money that facilitated the genocide of Gazans. These people are now raising<\/a> their voices against the EBU and all other complicit European institutions, saying that enough is enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is now up to them to ensure that their voices are heard as a last stance against the intentional degrading of European democracy.<\/p>\n

The EBU has declared<\/a> on December 17 that the booing from the crowd, directed at Israel\u2019s performance, will not be censored or drowned out, in what was meant as a concession. What a pitiful attempt at weaning the people into silence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But European civil society will not accept this, as their boos will and must drown Europe\u2019s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. It is time for the booing to increase, not only to delegitimize those who use music to whitewash the Gaza genocide but to hold accountable those who made the genocide possible in the first place, from Brussels to London to Paris, and now in Vienna.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As with all op-eds published by People\u2019s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.<\/p>\n

We hope you appreciated this article. At\u00a0People\u2019s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading\u00a0People\u2019s World\u00a0and the stories we bring you, please\u00a0support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ramzy<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Romana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JJ, from Austria, stands on the stage with his trophy after winning the Grand Final of the 69th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1503,50,60,85,46,409,43,545,48,2200,2711],"class_list":{"0":"post-222217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-gaza-war","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-palestine","17":"tag-palestinians","18":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222217","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=222217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}