So, like, Ireland’s national broadcaster has been asked to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest because Israel is in it. Irish actor Stephen Rea read a poem by Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who got killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza. The whole thing went down at RTE’s campus in Dublin on Friday. Protesters were there, wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags. They had banners saying stuff like “you can’t culturewash genocide” and “you need to boycott Israel now”. They even had a mini-concert with speeches and songs against war and supporting Palestine. They want Ireland to boycott Eurovision 2025 because over 70 former contestants want Israel banned. The European Broadcasting Union suspended Russia and Belarus in 2022, so why not Israel too?
The protest had artists, musicians, LGBT and human rights activists, and even the chairman of RTE’s NUJ sub-branch, Trevor Keegan. RTE’s director general Kevin Bakhurst said they won’t pull out of Eurovision, but he wrote to the EBU to talk about Israel’s participation. Zoe Lawlor from the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign said Israel is trying to “culturewash” apartheid at Eurovision. She thinks Ireland should follow its anti-apartheid stance from the 1980s and boycott. Pro-Palestine protesters were also outside a BBC studio in Belfast, criticizing the coverage of the Gaza conflict and calling for a Eurovision boycott. The BBC is sending Remember Monday with the song What the Hell Just Happened? to the contest in May. Yuval Raphael, a survivor of a Hamas attack, will represent Israel at Eurovision.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not really sure why this matters, but there’s a whole thing going on about boycotting Eurovision because of Israel. The protesters want Ireland to pull out of the competition, but RTE’s director general says they won’t. The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign thinks Israel shouldn’t be allowed to participate because of their apartheid policies. They want RTE to stand up for human rights and equality by boycotting Eurovision. Pro-Palestine activists were also outside a BBC studio in Belfast, making noise about the conflict in Gaza and calling for a Eurovision boycott.
In the end, Eurovision will start on May 13 in Switzerland, with the final on May 17. Israel will have Yuval Raphael, a survivor of a Hamas attack, representing them. So, like, the whole thing is causing quite a stir, with people on both sides of the issue speaking out. Not really sure where this will all end up, but it’s definitely got people talking.
