By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
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By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Broadcasting Union declined o have a vote on whether Israel should be allowed to participate in next year’s Eurovision singing contest. Several European countries had argued that the country’s genocidal behavior in Gaza was grounds for excluding it from the competition. Russia used to participate in Eurovision, as well, but was expelled after it invaded Ukraine.
In response, Ireland has pulled out of Eurovision and its state media service, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) will not broadcast the contest.
The broadcaster said in a statement, “RTÉ remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory.”
Israel refuses to allow journalists into Gaza and so the Israeli total war has never been fully reported on in Europe and the United States, on the specious grounds that the stringers in Gaza who reported for Al Jazeera and TRT World were unreliable. Hundreds of those stringers have been killed by Israeli strikes, in some instances apparently deliberately.
The Israelis have killed at least 70,000 people in Gaza, and probably many more — and the bulk of them were children, women and noncombatant men.
Slovenia, Spain, and the Netherlands also announced that they would boycott the competition.
Britain and its BBC, and Germany and SWR said that they accepted the EBU’s decision and would broadcast the event.
The Irish Times reports that the spokesperson for Ireland’s leftist Sinn Féin Party, Joanne Byrne, said that RTÉ’s decision to boycott is “correct and prinicipled,” given the “ongoing genocide” by Israel in Gaza: “I commend RTÉ for taking such a brave and principled stance.” She said she was “appalled” that the EBU did not allow a vote on Israel’s participation.
Spain’s RTVE had pledged in September that it would not carry the Eurovision competition if Israel were allowed to participate.
Holocaust guilt drove the EBU decision. Germany led a charge against Israel’s expulsion, and Austria, the site of next year’s competition, threatened to withdraw as host if Israel were not allowed to participate.
Spain is counted among the “Big Five” countries that donate the most money to Eurovision for its production. It had participated in every Eurovision contest back to 1961.
The Dutch broadcaster Avrotros also announced that it would not take part.
The chairman of Avrotros, Taco Zimmerman, issued this statement: “This has not been an easy decision, nor one taken lightly. The Eurovision Song Contest is of great importance to us. Culture unites, but not at any price. What has happened over the past year has tested the limits of what we can uphold. Universal values such as humanity and press freedom have been seriously compromised, and for us, these values are non-negotiable. As a public broadcaster, we have a responsibility to remain true to our core values, even when that is difficult or sensitive.”
Although Belgium has not yet announced a boycott, it had joined the others in asking for Israel to be expelled by the EBU.
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Juan Cole
Juan Cole, a TomDispatch regular, is the Richard P. Mitchell collegiate professor of history at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation From the Persian and Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. His latest book is Peace Movements in Islam. His award-winning blog is Informed Comment. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha and of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).