During the hours prior to the celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest The tension could be cut by raising a knife in the air: Israel’s participation in the musical contest, as well as some performances by the Hebrew delegation in Malmö, provoked a climate of disgust and rejection that reached its climax in the uncertainty that several countries sowed about their participation a few hours before the final. Now it comes to light that, in reality, this suffocating mystery spread much further than previously thought.
To the Israeli issue we had to add the disqualification of Netherlands for completely unrelated reasons – motivated, according to the Swedish police, by the investigation of alleged threats -, events that led to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to call an emergency meeting that, as Swedish and Norwegian media point out, was not resolved until there were no remaining only 25 minutes until the start of the final.
“We didn’t want to compete to be used”
“Many of us reacted to Israel’s opportunity to use Eurovision as its own political instrument. That’s why we thought about withdrawing until the last second.”confessed Magnus Bormark, one of the representatives of Norway in the latest edition. Indeed, the Nordic country was against the decisions that the organization had been making; was not the only one: Greece, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Ireland joined Switzerland, who would later become champion, in this fight against the EBU.
Their struggle was the following: they could not tolerate Israel being allowed to participate at the same time that the country maintains a bloody offensive on Gaza; much less there being the close precedent of Russia, which was excluded after undertaking the invasion of Ukraine. Surrounded by this circumstance, the artists considered that their action would help Israel meet its goal of whitewashing. “Our common point was that we did not want to compete to be used and branded in a war propaganda machine in Israel”Bormark has been honest.
Although they did not approve of the disqualification of Joost Kleinit was the Israeli material that truly made six countries leave their presence in the final up in the air: “We participate to create a space where we can unite in music and not in a political situation where everyone chooses sides and hates each other”. It was less than half an hour away.
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