Why Israel Wasn't Banned From Eurovision

Today, the European Broadcasting Union held it's promised vote about the inclusion of Israel in future Eurovision Song Contests, after 5 countries (Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovania) declared their attention not to participate in next year's Eurovision if Israel was permitted to remain.

The reasons cited were "Pro-Palestinian Values", Morality and the fact that Russia was removed from the song contest in 2022.

None of these countries have apparently read the terms and conditions of being included in Eurovision, or they might have avoided looking like anti-semetic morons.

Russia wasn't removed from the competition for Invading Ukraine, although said invasion did highlight the reasons for Russia being banned. By the same Metrics that Rusia was removed, Israel hasn't done anything worthy of being whacked with a ban-hammer.

First, Some Background...

Eurovision has existed since 1956, and despite the name, includes more countries than just those in Europe (notably the UK, Australia, Morocco, Russia, and Cyprus, as well as a number of transcontinental countries),

Participation in the contest is primarily open to all broadcasters with active EBU membership, with only one entrant per country allowed in any given year. To become an active member of the EBU, a broadcaster has to be from a country which is covered by the European Broadcasting Area—which is not limited only to the continent of Europe—or is a member state of the Council of Europe.[1] Thus, eligibility is not determined by geographic inclusion within Europe, despite the "Euro" in "Eurovision", nor does it have a direct connection with the European Union. Several countries geographically outside the boundaries of Europe have been represented in the contest: Israel, Cyprus, and Armenia, in Western Asia, since 1973, 1981, and 2006 respectively; Morocco, in North Africa, in the 1980 competition alone; and Australia making a debut in the 2015 contest. In addition, several transcontinental countries with only part of their territory in Europe have been represented: Turkey, from 1975 to 2012; Russia, from 1994 to 2021; Georgia, since 2007; and Azerbaijan, since 2008.

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Two countries that have previously sought to enter the competition, Lebanon and Tunisia, in Western Asia and North Africa respectively, are also outside of Europe

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Among the countries which have been discussed as potential new entrants are Canada, China, the Faroe Islands, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, New Zealand, and Qatar, some of which are inelegible to parcitipate due to a lack of an active or associate member broadcaster of the EBU.

The above quote cites the entry criteria, and several countries not located in Europe who have nonetheless participated in Eurovision. It also contradicts the most frequently repeated comments on the internet by people who also think themselves above a simple Wikipedia search.

The other, less mentioned, criteria is that the songs must be non-political. Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries have been dinged by this rule in the past, and Israel's entry of 2024, Edan Golan, was forced to re-write the lyrics of "Hurricane" (originally "October Rain") multiple times in order to participate. Additionally, participating broadcaster media must be independent.

Russia's removal, while they were asked not to participate (again, not the first time a country was asked to take a year off due to conflict with other entrants), is primarily because they suspended their membership in the European Broadcasting Union, and because they were found to be broadcasting propaganda from the Russian Government, a violation of the Independant requirement, not specifically because they invaded another country.

"The Israel public service broadcaster has been a member of the EBU for over 60 years. The Russian public service broadcasters had their EBU membership suspended in 2022 due to consistent breaches of membership obligations and the violation of public service media values."

One might also point out that Russia's invasion was unprovoked, while Israel's military operations in Gaza were in response to Hamas's massacre on October 7th, with the stated goal to remove the threat and retrieve hostages. But that fact has been lost on a certain percentage of the global Performative Activists for years.

The Bottom Line...

Until Israel breaks an actual rule, or fails to qualify for Eurovision generally, it still gets to participate.

There has never been any rule about awareness campaigns that Eurovision is happening and viewers should go vote. The only real rule related to voting is that the judge of a country can't vote for themselves and that audiences can't vote more than once per country.

A viewing household of 5 people, for example, can vote once per person, and there is talk of limiting each voter to 10 individual votes, but the fact that "A New Day Will Rise" resonated with a lot of people isn't "rigged voting".

I voted for Israel in 2025, along with the UK, Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, Sweedan and San Marino. The winning song didn't really do it for me, but that's ok, because plenty of judges and other viewers disagreed with me.

I was awake at 4:30 in the freaking morning on a Saturday to do so, because Australian timezones have a nasty habit of not aligning with the rest of the world, and I managed to sleep through the voting in 2024 ("Maria and Theresa" was robbed).

Personally, I think Ireland and Spain are just looking for an excuse to bow out of competing, given their rather dismal efforts in recent years.