israel

Eurovision Has Been Co-opted

| Sheree

Photo: Jens Büttner/Getty

I was brought up on the Eurovision Contest. We would gather together at my mum’s with food and drink, and sing along to every song even though we didn’t know the words.

It was an occasion of celebration and fun. We laughed and cried, argued and commiserated.

Whenever I think of Eurovision, I automatically think of my mum. But I can no longer hold Eurovision close to my heart. I cannot continue to support this institution any longer as it has become co-opted by Isreal.

Within hours of Russian invading the Ukraine in 2022, it was banned from Eurovision. Why hasn’t the same happened to Israel?

We have to ask the question what is happening behind the scenes? Especially when last year Israel received the biggest support from the public vote when we know that the genocide in Gaza is not supported by the majority?

Nemo, who won Eurovision in 2024, probably the last time I watched Eurovision, has returned their trophy in protest at Israel’s inclusion. As well as the 1994 winner Charlie McGettigan(from Ireland) returned their trophy in protest too.

There is something rotten in Eurovision.

There is no music that can cover up the atrocities that are happening to the Palestinians. No amount of music can justify a genocide. There is no stage that should platform genocide and apartheid.

Spain, Slovenia, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands are boycotting this year’s Eurovision because they cannot continue to ignore the genocide in Gaza.

No Music For Genocide has an open letter which states :

We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial. 

As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry.

No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.

Consider signing the letter and standing with Palestine here.

Irish TV, RTÉ, will be broadcasting the 1996 episode A Song for Europe , Father Ted as Ireland boycotts Eurovision in protest against Israel’s inclusion.

It’s a funny episode which I won’t mind watching as Father Ted and Father Douglas perform their song My Lovely Horse. I’ll not spoil it by telling you how many points they get!

Slovenia are planning to air documentaries under the theme of Voices of Palestine.

These countries boycotting and showing their condemnation of Israel and support for Palestine is what more countries and people should be doing, and I don’t use ‘should’ lightly.

One more point, the Father Ted episode is satire. The Irish put them into Eurovision because the song was so dreadful that they hoped they wouldn’t win again so that they wouldn’t have to foot the bill for hosting the next year’s contest.

Ireland has won the contest 7 times, and back to back wins in 1992 and 1993, is said to nearly have bankrupted the country as they had to host the concert again and again.

For me this is a clear indication of Eurovision, the non disqualification of Israel, the lack of calling out the genocide all comes down to money and vested interests.

Witnessing the Killing Fields

| Sheree
Bob Vylan

The political and media furore over chants at Glastonbury by Bob Vylan, a British punk duo has me reeling at the moment. I couldn’t get my head around it at first, why I was feeling such anger at this condemnation of their chant? At first I was thinking it was because this group are black and I felt it was racism again raising its ugly head. But then Kneecap is getting condemnation as well for ‘hate speech’, ‘inciting violence’, an Irish hip-hop trio from Belfast. I’m not saying that the Irish has not experienced their own form of racism, prejudice and discrimination either.

But then when I saw the newspaper headlines, and then the Prime Minister coming out say it was ”appalling hate speech’ wanting an investigation in the BBC and how they could allow this to happen, with criminal investigations being filed against both Bob Vylan and Kneecap, I realised why I was getting angry and really enraged. It was because there was all this disgust and moral hand whinging and condemnation of a chant, but not the same level of condemnation and rage and move to stop it for the genocide happening in Gaza, right now, or for the last 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks and 4 days. As the Palestinians continue to be exterminated by Israel Defense Forces (IDF), there is no condemnation, not opposition from the UK government, the media, those in business, those who are showing again and again that they are controlled, owned by the Israeli Government and State. Proving that they actually have vested interests in Israel and continuing the genocide.

It is ludicrous to witness, the political and media condemnation of a few words chanted at a music festival while Palestinians waiting in a line for aid, starving people who’ve been herded into this state of the queuing dead, are massacred by IDF. These people dead on their feet, seeking aid, did not pose a threat, and yet the IDF, an armed force just opened fire on them because they could. Because they know, no one is trying to stop them. No one is condemning their actions. The world is turning a blind eye to their war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Anyone opposing their horrendous crimes are called anti-semitic and are cancelled, condemned, silenced.

Bob Vylan, facing a criminal investigation have also been dropped but their record company and are on a travel ban to USA. Swift and sharp punishment for expressing their desire to see a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. Mass disgust across the country and further afield about a chant, but where is the mass disgust and action against the mass extermination of a people? The Palestinians, the people of Gaza.

“It’s a Killing Field”, reported by Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg within Haaretz, details how IDF soldiers were ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid. Unarmed people are treated like a hostile force and just shot and killed. Deliberately. Bullets is the IDF form of communication. Not chants, bullets. Where is the condemnation of this? Where is the Parliamentary emergency meeting to discuss this deliberate killing of human life, that is genocide, that are war crimes? None but there is one about Bob Vylan, and Lisa Nandy, British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024, standing up in Parliament, in solemn tones criticising the BBC the Glastonbury broadcast and Bob Vylan for the chanting. Claiming her moment in the limelight, making a performance, Nandy condemned the “appalling and unacceptable scenes” at Glastonbury and said the government would not tolerate antisemitism. But the government tolerates genocide. FACT.

I could go on as I’m sick and tired of hearing when someone criticises IDF, and the Israeli state of murdering Palestinians and claiming Gaze, the whole state, from river to sea, that this is being anti-semitic. This is just another tactic used for shutting people up. As when people are criticising the genocide of Palestinians and the stealing of their homeland, they are not saying they hate Jews or the Jewish people. They are saying that the massacre of a people is wrong. The IDF as an armed force is committing genocide. That is what is being condemned, criticised and left to the general public around the world to fight against as the Western countries are doing nothing to stop it.

Conflating these criticisms with Jewish people , calling it anti-semitic is like using a get out of jail free card on repeat. It’s not the same thing. And I would argue that if the chant, ‘death, death to the IDF’, is anti-semitic and hate speech inciting violence, what/who is it killing IDF? A chant, some words at Glastonbury or the Israeli government sending the IDF into war, ordering them to kill unarmed people seeking aid? Tell me which one is a whitewashing of crimes against humanity? The chant is not a chant of hate for Jewish people. The chant is anger at the genocidal actions of a genocidal army, the IDF, who are beginning to ask themselves if this was is just, and what is the humanitarian price the Gazan population paying for this war?