“Doing nothing, just watching, is no longer an option. » Israel's participation in the Eurovision contest scandalized Belgian television on Thursday May 9. While the Hebrew State, represented by Eden Golan, was competing in the game, before qualifying for the final, the Belgian channel VRT interrupted the semi-final broadcast on its channel with a message concerning the war waged by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“This is industrial action. We condemn the human rights violations perpetrated by the State of Israel. Furthermore, the State of Israel is destroying press freedom. This is why we briefly interrupt the image.
“We have watched with horror events in the Middle East for months. The Israeli far-right government is sparing nothing and no one to achieve its goals and exterminate the Palestinian people. Just this week, [he] is preparing a deadly ground offensive in the city of Rafah and the critical voice of Al-Jazeera English in Israel has been silenced. We are convinced that the State of Israel is perpetrating genocide and it is therefore scandalous that there is an Israeli candidate in the Eurovision Song Contest,” the Acod-VRT union posted on Facebook.
Through its action, the union organization intends to “send a signal to the Israeli government to stop the fighting and massacres, allow international observers and the press to enter (in Gaza) and sit down for a negotiated solution.”
Demonstration on Saturday in Malmö
Israel qualified for Saturday's Eurovision final in Malmö, Sweden, where thousands of people demonstrated against its participation for the same reasons as Belgian television. The 20-year-old singer Eden Golan won her ticket on Thursday May 9 with the song Hurricane, the initial version of which had to be modified because it alluded to the attack by the Islamist group Hamas which bloodied Israel on October 7, 2023 .
Israel thus joins the group of 26 countries which will compete on Saturday to succeed Sweden as winner of this competition followed by tens of millions of viewers each year. Nearly 12,000 people demonstrated in the host city on Thursday against Israel's participation, expressing outrage over the war in Gaza. A new gathering is planned for Saturday, the evening of the final.
