Eurovision has become a priority to Israel while maintaining his siege on Gaza: a massive showcase for project an image of resilience, normality and external support. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu allocated around one million euros of public funds to promote their representatives and mobilize voteswith money from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the communication and propaganda office known as “hasbara”. In the 2025 edition, the strategy sought more than just a good musical result: to counteract international isolation despite protests, calls for a boycott and accusations of genocide in Gaza, which the Israeli Executive denies. The case, revealed this week by an investigation by the New York Times, shows the extent to which the contest has acquired political value for the Israeli Government in the midst of war. All this, while not only some European governments but also a United Nations commission has accused the country of committing genocide, something that Israel continues to deny.
“Today Eurovision functions as a form of cultural diplomacywhere entertainment, national identity and geopolitics intersectwhich makes it a soft power scenario y destabilizes its old idea of a politically neutral spectacle“, Galina Miazhevich, a researcher at Cardiff University, specializing in geopolitics and ‘soft power’, explains to EL PERIÓDICO. While Eurovision is committed to defending its founding values of uniting people through culture, open wars and the repositioning of European alliances have turned it into a symbolic battlefield.
The red line of the vote
The controversy no longer revolves only around Israel’s presence on stage. The focus is on the use of public resources to intervene in a contest in which artists and public radio and television stations formally participate, but where governments should not interfere. What has most worried the radio and television stations participating in the event is “state-sponsored manipulation of the public vote“(that of Israel), Catherine Baker, professor at the University of Hull and specialist in nationalism, popular culture and national identity in Eurovision, explains to this newspaper.
The term of songwashing (brand wash with a song) has reached another level with the war in Gaza. In Malmö, in 2024, Israeli participation has already caused mass protests. In Basel, in 2025, controversy grew after Yuval Raphael won the televote and finished second. It was especially striking that Israel obtained substantial support, including 12 points from countries with a large critical mass against the siege of Gaza, such as Spain.
“There is a fine line between a passionate or active promotion of the competition and the explicit appeals accompanied by instructions on how to vote“says Galina Miazhevich, from Cardiff University. The researcher thus points to the orchestrated massive mobilization of pro-Israeli sectors by the Netanyahu Government, especially in countries critical of its policies.
The Israeli Government would have spent more than $800,000 in advertising linked to Eurovision, especially since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An item from the “hasbara” office appeared destined for “promotion of the vote.” In 2025, Finnish radio and television detected official advertisements broadcast encouraging voting for the Israeli candidate up to the maximum allowed: then, 20 times per viewer (now the limit has been reduced to 10 votes).
Israel turns Eurovision into a tool of public diplomacy / TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
The EBU maintains that these campaigns did not alter the result. However, cases like that of Spain show how the organization of a mobilized minority could make a difference and turn the balance in one of the countries that has spoken out most forcefully against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Neutrality under suspicion
The controversy has been reopened with the Israeli representative of 2026, Noam Bettan. The EBU issued a formal warning after it They broadcast videos with instructions to “vote 10 times for Israel”. The organization asked to remove the messages and maintained that a direct appeal of this type does not fit with its rules or with the spirit of the contest. This warning falls short for critics, who warn that Israel is once again not playing by the rules of the game.
Baker maintains that “no international event can exist outside of the international relations that order the world“, and the appeal of Eurovision, with a global audience of 166 million viewers, is comparable to that of the Olympic Games or the World Cup. Winning the contest gives positive public notoriety, and even more so if the prize is hosting the next macro event, therefore, it becomes a political issue.
Eurovision played its own continuity this Saturday: the legitimacy as a musical contest, the questioning of their values foundations, and the challenge of redefined and reposition itself as the old world order falls and a new one takes shape. “The value that Eurovision continues to have in the future in matters of public diplomacy It will depend on whether it manages to maintain its festive brand image and its appeal to the general public.”concludes Baker.
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