– Israel can win Eurovision

In the Nordic countries, the debate has raged whether Israel should be banned from this year’s Eurovision. Maybe they will end up winning the whole thing instead.

When I stood in the audience during last year’s Eurovision final in Liverpool, the mood was very good while Noa Kirel came out on stage.

The 22-year-old pop singer from Israel performed the very danceable song “Unicorn”, a favorite among many, and even finished with a respectable third place. The music was the focus.

It will not do that when Eden Golan takes the stage to perform this year’s Israeli contribution. She has already had to change the title of her song from “October Rain”, a mildly unsubtle reference to Hamas’ terrorist attack on October 7, to the more neutral “Hurricane”.

And the pressure has been great that Israel simply should not be allowed to participate. In any case, the debate in the Nordic countries has been fierce, and over 4,000 Nordic artists have signed a call for a boycott.

But the Nordics are not Europe. Norway is probably the European country where both politicians and people have the strongest sympathy for the Palestinians’ cause. But in many European countries, support for Israel is still very strong, even if it has decreased somewhat as the military assaults on the Gaza Strip have become more difficult to ignore.

A boycott was probably never relevant. It simply takes an extremely long time for a country to be banned from Eurovision on political grounds. For example, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh last autumn and crushed the Armenian separatists there. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia are on stage during this year’s Eurovision.

It doesn’t work Russia, who were banned from participation after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (something they were not after the invasion of Krym in 2014). The difference is that after the full-scale invasion, it was Europe as a whole that thought it would completely destroy the reputation of Eurovision to let Russia participate after they had gone in militarily to wipe out another participating country.

In addition, the European Broadcasting Union EBU, which organizes Eurovision, believed that the Russian member broadcaster had in practice become a propaganda channel controlled by the warlord Vladimir Putin.

So in defiance all criticism that can and should be directed at Israel, they put on stage during this year’s show. It is not the first time it has been controversial. Israel participated for the first time in 1973, and has often been followed by controversy. Both because the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has been a reality for all these years, and because the country has always been involved in controversial wars.

The controversy still goes both ways. There are many who keep asking themselves why Israel, a country in the Middle East, is allowed to take part in a European music competition at all. The answer is that the EBU has member broadcasters from several countries around the Mediterranean.

This currently applies to both Israel, Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon. So why didn’t the Arab countries participate in Eurovision? The short answer is: Because Israel is involved. On several occasions, countries have offered to participate, or have actually tried, but have been challenged by the following requirements: They must show the Israeli contribution.

It is difficult for countries such as Lebanon, where there is a legal prohibition against showing programs with Israeli content. In 1978, several Arab countries broadcast the competition on TV. But when it became clear that Israel was about to win, the Jordanian broadcaster chose to cut the broadcast – and announced the next day that Belgium had won.

The only time one of these Arab countries has participated in Eurovision was 1980 when Morocco participated. This year Israel did not participate, as the country had won the final two years in a row and could not afford to be the host nation again.

That Israeli participation in Eurovision creates controversy, in other words, is nothing new. This year, there is still reason to believe that the mind will reach new heights. Many are furious and despair over the war in Gaza, and will never vote for the country no matter how good the contribution may be. I myself am one of them. But we are only going to distribute our votes to all other countries.

It is enough for Israel that a relatively large minority vote for them – either for political reasons, or because they simply like the song. And such a minority exists in many, many European countries. Will it be enough to secure enough 12-pointers for Eden Golan with his “Hurricane”? In any case, it should not be ruled out.

At the time of writing the song is in fifth place on the betting company’s lists of who will get the most votes from the people, but a little lower when you bet on the jury votes. We will get a slightly closer answer after watching the semi-finals this week. And still the presenters in Malmö have not said the famous words: “Europe, start voting now!”