At the beginning of the Noam Bettan, who represents Israel in the Eurovision contest, calls were heard for “stop the genocide“(”stop the genocide”, in English) e a “free Palestine”. Still, Israel secured passage to the final.
It is yet another episode to add to the strong opposition that has marked the 70th edition of the Eurovision festival, which takes place in the Austrian capital and which has the lowest number of participations in the last two decades (35).
In addition to the various boycotts of participation and broadcasts of the festival on television, when the candidate representing Israel took the stage, the protest was heard with appeals, possibly coming from the audience, for “stop the genocide“ -”stop the genocide”, in English – and a “free Palestine” – “Free Palestine” in English.
But despite the protests, first semi-final, which took place this Tuesday, Israel (“Michelle”/Noam Betten) guaranteed passage to the finalas well as Greece (with the song “Ferto”, performed by Akylas), Finland (“Liekinheitin”/Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkkonen), Belgium (“Dancing on the ice”/Essyla), Sweden (“My System”/Felicia), Moldova (“Viva, Moldova”/Satoshi), Serbia (“Kraj mene”/Lavina), Croatia (“Andromeda”/Lelek), Lithuania (“Sólo quiero más”/Lion Ceccah) and Poland (“Pray”/Alicja).
Of fora, there were Georgia (“On Replay”/Bzikebi), Montenegro (“Nova zora”/ Tamara Zivkovic), Estonia (“Too epic to be true”/V.Ninja) and San Marino (“Superstar”/Senhit).
Among the countries that decided not participate in this year’s editionin protest of theauthorization by members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) of Israel’s participation, is Spain, which is part of the “Big Five” groupbut also Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland.
The boycotts are due to Israel’s military attacks on the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, since October 2023, which killed at least 72,000 people and were classified as genocide by an independent international commission of investigation of the United Nations.
O has been held annually since 1956 and there have already been excluded countries, such as Belarus, in 2021after the re-election of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and Russia, in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine. Israel was the first non-European country to be able to participatein 1973, and won four times.
