More than 1,100 musicians and cultural workers have called for a boycott of the 70th edition of the Eurovision song competition over its inclusion of Israel, amid growing pressure to ban the country over its genocide in Gaza.
Campaign groups No Music for Genocide and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (more commonly known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement) on Tuesday published an open letter to “reject Eurovision being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians”.
“How can any performer or Eurovision fan in good conscience participate at the contest’s next edition in Austria amidst US-Israeli plans for hyper-surveilled concentration camps in ‘New Gaza’?” the letter reads, co-signed by artists including Macklemore, Paloma Faith, Kneecap, Massive Attack and former winners of the Eurovision contest.
“There are moments in time when passive silence is not an option. We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives.”
Eurovision, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), has faced accusations of double standards as it banned Russia from competing shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, citing concerns of an “unprecedented crisis in Ukraine”, which could “bring the competition into disrepute”.
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More than two and a half years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza with a death toll surpassing 72,000 according to the Gaza health ministry, Eurovision has repeatedly defended the participation of Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, in the contest.
“The EBU’s hypocritical responses to Russia’s and Israel’s crimes have removed any illusion of Eurovision’s claimed ‘neutrality’. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would ‘bring the competition into disrepute’,” the letter continued.
“Yet more than 30 months of genocide in Gaza – alongside ethnic cleansing and land theft in the besieged West Bank – aren’t considered sufficient to apply the same policy to Israel.”
The EBU declined to put the exclusion of Israel to a vote in its meeting in December, and in response, five countries – Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain – announced that they were withdrawing from the 2026 Eurovision contest in Vienna.
Israeli outlet Ynet reported last year that Israeli President Isaac Herzog put together a team to push for Israel’s participation, with some “direct lobbying (of) EBU members, aiming to prevent the assembly from moving to a binding vote that Israel feared it might lose”.
The letter added: “We applaud the principled withdrawals of the Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Slovenian, and Dutch broadcasters, and the many national selection finalists committing to refuse to go to Eurovision.”
In a similar protest against the EBU’s decision, the Swiss winner of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, Nemo, returned their award after Israel was cleared to participate in this year’s event.