Why Israel is unlikely to be banned from the Eurovision song contest

Despite loud calls from Scandinavia, the host broadcaster doesn’t want to turn a feel-good event into a stick of political dynamite.

In recent weeks, voices in Europe have increasingly called on countries participating in the Eurovision Song Contest to boycott the event if Israel is not expelled by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The most dominant expression of these voices is petitions, signed by thousands of artists in countries such as Iceland, Finland, Spain, and Sweden. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EBU’s response was immediate and unequivocal: a full boycott and suspension of Russia from the contest. The decision was made as Russia was boycotted by all political, cultural, and sports enterprises in the Western world that year.

Unlike the Russian case, Israel's situation is much more complex for the EBU. There are political, historical, and musical reasons behind the complexity, which make the chances of Israel being suspended extremely low:

1. While around there was overwhelming political agreement over the suspension of Russia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general is much more controversial and far less clear-cut. If the EBU responds to boycott calls from negligible and small countries in the contest like Iceland, and repels Israel, it risks the withdrawal of large and important countries that (partly or fully) support the Israeli side, such as Germany, France, and the UK.

The difference between the Russian and Israeli cases was sharpened and illustrated this week by a petition signed by hundreds of artists (among them Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Osbourne, and Boy George) in support of Israel's participation in the contest.