Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia have flounced out of Eurovision, clutching their pearls as though the mere sight of an Israeli flag on a stage in Vienna next year would send the continent into moral free-fall.
How ridiculous. If they want to boycott the biggest, glitziest celebration of cross-border eccentricity ever devised, then frankly the contest is better off without them.
For years certain countries have perfected the art of sulking from the sidelines each time Eurovision confronts an uncomfortable truth. Now, in a fit of theatrical indignation, they have issued what they bizarrely imagine is a principled stand but which in reality resembles a toddler’s refusal to eat dinner because they dislike the cutlery.
The trigger for their walkout is the simple, rational decision to allow Israel to compete in 2026. Germany and Austria, to their credit, had already said they would refuse to participate if Israel were excluded. And rightly so. The only nation ever ejected from Eurovision is Russia, after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The bar for expulsion is, therefore, not emotional offence but the hard reality of unprovoked aggression. On any sane reading of events, Israel does not even come close to qualifying for such treatment.
The outrage brigade points to Gaza and cries genocide, a word now tossed about with such reckless abandon that it has been emptied of meaning. Yet anyone who has glanced, even briefly, at Hamas’s founding charter will notice something striking. Only one party to this conflict has ever declared a formal wish to exterminate an entire people, and it is not Israel. It was Hamas that carried out the genuinely genocidal massacres of October 7 2023, that boasted of its intention to repeat them, and that embedded itself among civilians precisely to ensure that Palestinian deaths served the propaganda aims of its long war against the Jewish state.
Israel’s response has been widely caricatured as uniquely brutal, but serious analysis says otherwise. Historians of unimpeachable distinction, have shown that Israel’s ratio of non-combatant casualties compares favourably with the conduct of Western militaries, including Britain’s and America’s, in their own legitimate campaigns. This does not suit the activists’ narrative, of course, but facts rarely do.
To equate Israel’s war of self-defence with Vladimir Putin’s predatory assault on Ukraine is not merely sloppy thinking but an insult to every principle Europe claims to uphold. And yet here we are, with certain European broadcasters choosing to punish the one democracy brave enough to defend itself against a terrorist organisation that openly seeks its annihilation. Their stance is self-righteous, illogical and morally inverted.
Eurovision, to its immense credit, has refused to be bullied. The EBU chose rule of law over mob sentiment, fairness over fashionable outrage. It recognised that Israel, a long-standing participant that has won four times, deserves to stand on the same stage as every other country that abides by the contest’s regulations. It refused to cave to the preening theatrics of governments and broadcasters seeking to turn a music competition into a geopolitical morality pageant.
So if countries like Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland prefer sulking in the hallway to stepping onto the dancefloor, let them. Eurovision will survive without their ritualised grumbling. The stage lights will still blaze, the costumes will still dazzle, the power ballads will still soar into the rafters. And Israel, whose presence has always added a spark of brilliance and unpredictability to the event, will be right where it belongs: competing, singing, refusing to be silenced.
Britain should support this wholeheartedly. A Europe that ostracises democracies while placating terrorists is not a continent worth aspiring to. A Eurovision that kneels before political tantrums is not a contest worth saving. Thankfully, the EBU has chosen the sensible course.
Let the boycotters stay home. Eurovision will be louder, freer and, yes, better off without them.
