{"id":440306,"date":"2026-05-13T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/440306\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T22:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:00:13","slug":"israels-noam-bettan-advances-in-eurovision-song-contest-amid-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/440306\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s Noam Bettan Advances in Eurovision Song Contest Amid Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIsraeli performer Noam Bettan advanced in the annual Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> as tensions mounted over his country\u2019s participation, with protesters shouting \u201cstop the genocide\u201d and reportedly delaying the beginning of his performance.<\/p>\n

\n\tBettan was set to start his performance of the song \u201cMichelle\u201d when several audience members booed<\/a> and shouted anti-Israel sentiments, while others chanted Bettan\u2019s name in support. Organizers for Eurovision said that a few of the disruptive attendees were removed from the arena, and their shouts were edited out of the performance clip posted by Eurovision online. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest<\/a>, branded with the tagline \u201cUnited by Music,\u201d has entered its final phase following yesterday\u2019s semi-final presentation, but Israel\u2019s participation in the competition has generated protracted controversy and division among participating nations.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the lead-up to the Contest, five countries \u2013 Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands \u2014 withdrew, pointing to Israel\u2019s conduct during its war in Gaza as the reason. Ireland, which last won the contest in 1996 and announced its withdrawal last September, said<\/a> it would be airing the beloved sitcom \u201cFather Ted\u201d instead of the Contest\u2019s conclusion on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\n\tJos\u00e9 Pablo L\u00f3pez, president of the Spanish broadcaster RTVE, explained his country\u2019s withdrawal from the contest last September. \u201cIt is not accurate to claim that Eurovision is merely an apolitical music festival. We are all aware that the contest carries significant political implications. The Israeli government is equally aware of this fact and leverages the event on the international stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDutch public broadcaster AVROTROS also explained its withdrawal from the Contest, stating it \u201ccan no longer justify Israel\u2019s participation in the current situation, given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza,\u201d continuing: \u201cMoreover, there is proven interference by the Israeli government during the last edition of the Song Contest, in which the event was used as a political instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe organization was referring to allegations of interference in the voting process by the Israeli government in last year\u2019s Contest. \u201cWe saw some activity last year which we could describe as disproportionate marketing and promotional activity that we felt was out of sync with the nature of the show, so we put some rules in about that,\u201d Eurovision Song Contest Director Martin Green told Reuters this week without directly referencing the allegations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director of the Contest, Martin Green, told the BBC<\/a> today that it was watching the public voting tallies \u201cvery, very carefully.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2022, the European Broadcasting Union, an umbrella of European broadcasters and the parent organization of the Contest, suspended Russia\u2019s involvement following its initiation of the war in Ukraine. The EBU described the move as a \u201cprecedent,\u201d but that \u201cit\u2019s not our role to make comparisons between conflicts,\u201d Irish public broadcaster RT\u00c9 reported.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe EBU canceled a planned vote over Israel\u2019s participation in December.<\/p>\n

The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place between Greece (Akylas), Finland (Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen), Belgium (Essyla), Sweden (Felicia), Moldova (Satoshi), Israel (Noam Bettan), Serbia (Lavina), Croatia (Lelek), Lithuania (Lion Ceccah) and Poland (Alicja) competing for top honors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli performer Noam Bettan advanced in the annual Eurovision Song Contest as tensions mounted over his country\u2019s participation,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10570,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-440306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440306","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=440306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}