For an annual event with the slogan “United by music,” the Eurovision Song Contest is striking a loud note of discord. It’s about Israel, of course. The four-time winner of the world’s biggest music show is reportedly being asked to drop out this year or face the humiliation of being kicked out.
It started with Ireland, spread to Spain, and from there to the Netherlands and other countries whose broadcast companies say they will not participate if Israel is allowed to take part. If you want to get a laugh out of this not-funny situation, search for Eylon Levy’s clip explaining Ireland’s motivation, “pure, emerald-green envy.”
“Oh, sweetie, please,” he mocks: “That’s not a boycott. It’s an alibi. You haven’t even qualified for seven of the last 10 Eurovisions… Meanwhile, Israel has been in the top five, three years in a row…”
The situation in Spain is even more absurd. The country, under the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has lost the plot – particularly since Israel dared fight back following the Hamas-led, Iran- and Qatar-sponsored, invasion and mega-atrocity of October 7, 2023. Spain would like to expel the Jews from everything; echoes of the great Expulsion of 1492.
Spain recently tried to stop an Israeli team from competing in a chess tournament under Israel’s blue-and-white flag. Ironically, the competition took place in the Basque region, one of the several areas demanding independence from Spain.
Among the Israeli competitors who refused to comply with the ban was Erez Kupervaser, whose sister, Shani, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7, when 1,200 were slaughtered, thousands wounded, and 251 taken captive. There are still 48 hostages in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.
Fortunately, FIDE, the International Chess Federation, made the right move and stood up for Israel. The federation issued a statement saying: “FIDE strongly condemns any form of discrimination, including on the basis of nationality and flag. The same rules apply to Israel and its players as for all other member federations that are not under any form of sanctions.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters, however, managed to put a spoke in the wheels of the Israeli cycling team at the prestigious Vuelta de Espana race. At first, the Israelis removed the flag and emblem from their shirts, hoping this would defuse the tension, but, as Europe has shown in the dark past, appeasement doesn’t work.
Eventually, the race was prematurely terminated – with Sanchez’s blessing – as the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas mob continued to sabotage the event. Violence is obviously their idea of being good sports.
The International Cycling Union condemned Sanchez’s stand as “contradictory to the Olympic values of unity, mutual respect, and peace.”
JUST HOW removed Sanchez is from those values became apparent last week when he was quoted as saying: “Spain, as you know, doesn’t have nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers, or large oil reserves. We alone can’t stop the Israeli offensive. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying. Because there are causes worth fighting for, even if winning them isn’t in our sole power.”
So, ironically, the Spanish prime minister regrets not being able to nuke Israel while accusing Israel of being a genocidal state. The UN has issued a special report condemning the Jewish state, citing less damning comments than that.
As Stephen Pollard sarcastically put it in The Spectator, “Such a shame. If only Spain had nuclear weapons, then it could have done even better than Hitler and wiped out the 7.4 million Israeli Jews. Or blackmailed Israel into surrendering to Hamas. Nice guy, Pedro. I bet some of his best friends aren’t Jews.”
Pollard also noted, “Boycotting Jews is now a thing, so of course Spain and Ireland are going to be at the forefront. On Wednesday [September 10], the Ghent Festival in Belgium joined in, canceling a concert by the Munich Philharmonic because it would be conducted by a Jew (oops, Israeli), its future chief conductor, Lahav Shani.
“The festival’s statement was quite something. The decision to make the festival Judenfrei on the scheduled night of the concert was ‘based on our deepest conviction that music should be a source of connection and reconciliation… We have chosen to preserve the serenity of our festival and to guarantee the concert experience for visitors and musicians alike.’ Keep the Jews away for the good (‘serenity’) of everyone else, was the message.”
And so much for the Jews controlling Hollywood. Some 4,000 movie people – including Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Mark Ruffalo – have signed a pledge to cut ties with Israeli institutions, including film festivals. Talk about acting in bad faith.
Paramount Pictures swiftly responded: “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.
“The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world. We need more engagement and communication – not less.”
In a case of foul play, German football team Fortuna Dusseldorf dropped Israeli Shon Weissman as a potential acquisition after mass pro-Palestinian protests. Weissman shot back on Instagram: “I am a son of a nation still grieving from the horrors of October 7. That black day, when entire families were murdered, kidnapped, and brutalized, remains an open wound for me as a person, as a member of an Israeli family, and as an athlete representing my country.”
The boycotts go beyond the world of sports and culture. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week, Israel is under diplomatic and economic attack.
Among the strangest boycott measures, Britain declared Israeli military personnel would be barred from studying at the Royal College of Defense Studies. Britain might have benefited from learning about Israeli techniques, which, contrary to perception, reduce “collateral casualties.” It could also learn the importance of fighting back in the face of the Islamist threat and global jihad.
Academic boycotts are even more absurd. Nobody died because a movie wasn’t screened in Tel Aviv; many, many lives have been saved because of Israeli technology and know-how.
Legitimizing attacks on Israelis and Jews everywhere
BY DELEGITIMIZING Israel’s existence, the boycott movement legitimizes attacks on Israelis and Jews everywhere. It’s also a distraction. While the world obsesses over its distorted view of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, it does not focus on places where real injustice, starvation, and mass murder are rampant, including Sudan and Yemen. There are millions of Muslim victims who are the victims of jihadist extremists, not Jews.
“Peace flotilla” activists, with Greta Thunberg as their figurehead leader, have so lost their moral compass that their greatest desire is to navigate to Gaza – that Islamist terrorist haven where women are forced to cover up, homosexuals live in hiding, Christians live in fear, and Jews are not allowed to live at all.
Former British officer Andrew Fox published on Substack a piece called “Israel Derangement Syndrome: Hamas PR has made the world lose its mind.”
Relating to the spate of boycott incidents, he wrote: “At first glance, these stories seem trivial, almost absurd, laughable. Eurovision tantrums, political posturing, virtue-signaling, and the Western obsession with grandstanding over the Middle East.
“However, none of this is random. Each reflects deep domestic histories of terrorism, antisemitism, and post-colonial guilt that are now exploited by Hamas propaganda and rechanneled against the Jewish state…
“What we are seeing is not ‘criticism of Israel.’ It is a new, globalized antisemitism. When Israeli athletes are shunned, when Jewish students are harassed on campus, when feces are smeared on London synagogues, when kosher restaurants are vandalized in Paris, Berlin, New York – it is not about Gaza. It is about Jews.
“BDS was always about this. Its founders admitted openly that their goal was not two states, but the erasure of Israel altogether. Now, through lawfare, media manipulation, and social media swarming, they have normalized antisemitism as ‘progressive’ chic.”
It’s not about Jews painting themselves as victims – in the Spanish Inquisition or the Holocaust. It’s about preventing future tragedies – preventing more October 7s, as Hamas has pledged, or being wiped out by a nuclear bomb as Iran has threatened (Sanchez’s inspiration, perhaps).
If you’re relying on pro-Palestinians to put on a show like the Eurovision, create Hollywood movies, or set the rules for international sporting events, don’t be surprised if they’re bombed out.