Why Eurovision's fallout over Israel may change the competition forever Daniel RosneyBBCMoments after Austria overtook Israel to win last May's Eurovision Song Contest and in doing so won the right to host this year's event, UK viewers heard commentator Graham Norton say organisers "will be breathing the largest sigh of relief that they're not faced with a Tel Aviv final next year".Anti-Israel protests had built ahead of the contest. At a demonstration of several hundred people in Basel, Switzerland, where the final was held, protesters wore the Palestinian flag and smeared themselves with fake blood to symbolise the killings in Gaza. During the grand final the Israeli singer Yuval Raphael was targeted when two people attempted to storm the stage, and threw paint which ended up hitting a Eurovision crew member.The atmosphere in the arena as the results came in was easily the most tense I've experienced in my years of reporting on the song contest.
There were chants of "Austria, Austria" as the audience awaited the final scores.TT/ReutersSome have opposed Israel's inclusion since the start of the war in GazaIf many in the crowd didn't appear to want Israel to win, the public vote showed a different perspective. Yuval Raphael, who received middling points from the competition's judges, outperformed every other participant when it came to the public vote.A number of broadcasters subsequently queried Israel finishing so highly. They pointed to the fact that official social media accounts linked to Israel's government, including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had been asking people to vote for its representative 20 times, the maximum the contest allowed.Their implication was that the public vote result was less a reflection of widespread public support for Raphael, and more the product of some people voting for Israel as many times as they could.The Israeli government itself has frequently claimed it faces a global smear campaign.Some broadcasters wanted an audit.
There were calls to review the voting system, which had been in place for many years, to ensure that, in the words of Flemish public broadcaster VRT, it could guarantee "a fair reflection of the opinion of viewers and listeners".In response, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event, confirmed the vote had been independently checked and verified, and there was no evidence that voting up to 20 times "disproportionally affects [sic] the final result", later clarifying it was "a valid and robust result".The near victory for Israel, which first entered the contest in 1973 and has won it four times, brought to boiling point what for many years had been a simmering backstage dispute over the influence of geopolitics and conflict on Eurovision voting.The contest's biggest boycottThe Eurovision Song Contest is now facing its biggest boycott in its 70-year history.While 35 countries are participating in the 2026 contest, broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia have withdrawn from this week's event in opposition to Israel's inclusion.Their precise reasons for doing so vary and are not always explicit. Some say they are boycotting the 2026 contest in protest at the military offensive in Gaza that began in 2023 and has seen more than 72,000 people killed, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry. Israel's offensive began after the militant group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Some broadcasters have also accused Israel's government of genocide, which Israel strongly denies.It's notable that most of the boycotting broadcasters are in broad alignment with the policies of their governments. Some are from countries where governments have explicitly and strongly criticised the state of Israel. Last month, politicians from Spain, Slovenia and Ireland tried and failed to push the European Union to suspend the bloc's preferential trade relations with Israel.
The broadcasters insist they came to their own independent decisions.AFP via ImagesEurovision, which started in 1956, is facing the biggest controversy of its 70-year historyPreviously, a handful of broadcasters had publicly raised concerns around Israel's inclusion since the start of the offensive but none had withdrawn from the 2024 or 2025 contests.As calls for a boycott grew, Miki Zohar, Israel's Minister of Culture and Sports said: "The Eurovision Song Contest is a celebration of music, culture and brotherhood between nations, not a platform for scoring political points." He described a potential boycott as "shameful and hypocritical".Politics has arguably always been at the heart of Eurovision voting; with closely linked nations frequently giving each other points in the public vote.But some broadcasters feel that despite the EBU saying last year's event was a fair vote, Israel's presence and the alleged voting patterns that go with it are making it impossible for Eurovision to be a genuine contest of music popularity.Such is the strength of feeling around what some feel happened last year, there are some who now argue that while geopolitics affecting voting is one thing, no country that is at war should be allowed in the song contest. They would go so far as to exclude Ukraine in order to protect what they see as the integrity of Eurovision voting.So does Eurovision need to re-write its rule book for the world's most-watched entertainment show? Or does doing so risk creating more problems than it resolves?United by musicEurovision is a competition not between governments but one involving members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), a community of public service broadcasters including the United Kingdom's BBC whose primary function is to share footage of news events.
Over many decades, EBU membership has spread beyond the continent. The contest's slogan is "united by
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