Eurovision Boycott is as essential as ever
Pressure on the EBU is growing. What we do now matters.
Preparations for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel are in full swing. Artists and their supporting delegations are arriving for rehearsals and to promote their songs; fans are posting their song rankings and cheery pictures of their own travels to Basel. Contrasted with the demonstrations and debates of last year, 2025 appears to be an entirely normal Eurovision.
It is not a normal Eurovision. There will not be another ‘normal’ Eurovision – or Olympics, or World Cup for that matter – while genocide-committing states are allowed to compete.
The reasons that necessitated the boycott over Israel’s participation in the Contest last year have only intensified. For the past two months, Israel has blocked all food, water, fuel and medicine from entering Gaza – an act which constitutes genocide, as well as the war crimes of collective punishment and using starvation as a method of war. The ceasefire reached in January this year was violated by Israel within a matter of weeks. As of the 20th of April, the death toll stands at at least 51,305 people, including 17,400 children.
It should not have to be said that allowing a genocidal state in Eurovision flies in the face of the Contest’s stated values of ‘universality, equality, inclusivity and its proud tradition of celebrating diversity through music.’ There is nothing inclusive about the use of starvation as a tool of war, nothing worth celebrating about the slaughter of children.
There is also no hiding from the fact that Israel uses Eurovision for political gain. As Israel commits the above atrocities, it simultaneously gets to present them as normal and justifiable to a sympathetic global audience by sending another song about October 7 to the world’s largest live musical event. The organisers of Eurovision may not recognise the political power participation in the contest has, but the Israeli broadcaster, KAN, certainly does: Yuval Raphael explicitly speaks to the platform Eurovision provides when she tells the press that she wants ‘to stand on that stage, wrapped in the Israeli flag, and make sure the world hears our story.’
The EBU and Eurovision producers have gone to new, repressive lengths to avoid responsibility for this situation, and to shut down any criticism of their decisions. In addition to the usual claims that Eurovision is ‘non-political’, the EBU now claims that Israel has not been excluded from Eurovision because it has not violated broadcasting standards and journalistic integrity as Russia had when it was excluded. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 82 journalists were killed by the Israeli military in Palestine and Lebanon in 2024 – 70% of the total number of journalists killed around the world last year.
A change in the rules regarding flags allows audiences to carry whichever flags they like, but is countered with the requirement that in official spaces – the stage, green room, blue carpet and press centre – artists are only permitted to carry the ‘official national flags of the country they are representing in the contest.’ Artists will not be able to smuggle Palestinian flags or other symbols of Palestinian solidarity on stage (nor expressions of support for anything else, notably queer identities or Indigenous rights), and camera operators will be able to pan straight past any flags or banners in the audience that the EBU deems ‘political’. Similar restrictions on press access and a new code of conduct with heavy emphasis on ‘respect[ing] ESC Values and Political Neutrality’ further limit the types of discussions that can be had in official spaces. Taken together, these moves afford the EBU total control over what will be seen and heard on stage and on screen.
Yet at the same time, pressure on the EBU is growing. The national broadcasters of Slovenia (RTV SLO), Spain (RTVE) and Iceland (RÚV) have all communicated concerns to the EBU about Israel and KAN’s participation. Over 70 former Eurovision artists have shared an open letter urging the EBU to stop “allow[ing] music to be used to whitewash crimes against humanity.” Even UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesa Albanese, has commented on the impact of this pressure, tweeting that ‘The tide is changing’ and reminding people that collective resistance makes a difference.
In this context, the boycott of Eurovision is as important as ever. One of the main arguments people make against boycotts focuses on individual agency: “I’m just one person, my actions won’t have any impact.” It is especially easy to feel this way about Eurovision as one among tens of thousands people who try buy tickets, or one among 160 million people who watch.
But the history of boycotts proves time and time again that individuals acting together have real power. The boycott of plantation-made sugar that aided the abolition of the British slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries started among a small community of British and American Quakers, but grew into a massive nondenominational antislavery movement against a range of slave-produced products, supported by nearly half a million Britons. The cultural and sporting boycotts of South Africa during the 1960s-80s, including banning South Africa from the Olympics, played an essential role in bringing down the apartheid regime.[1] Pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement made sportswear company Puma drop its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association in 2023.
These boycotts take time – they require patience and commitment – but they do work, and the decisions of individuals who participate in them are essential to creating the momentum and financial pressure that make them work. The pressure from the Slovenian, Icelandic and Spanish broadcasters shows that this same momentum is building around the Eurovision Boycott. We can all contribute to it by not watching. If you really can’t tear yourself away from the screen this year, or already have tickets, then choices like not voting, not buying merchandise, and not publicly celebrating the contest (for example posting on social media or contributing to fan media content) are still a powerful first step.
The German philosopher Hannah Arendt makes a distinction between guilt as directly causing harm, and responsibility as recognition of, and accountability for, being part of a community that has caused or enabled that harm.[2] Eurovision may not be directly guilty of Israel’s atrocity crimes, but the community has a responsibility to ensure that the contest does not provide a platform to normalise and provide cover for those crimes. Pressuring the EBU to remove Israel from the contest by boycotting is one of the core ways Eurofans can take responsibility.
Notes
[1] Cobus Rademeyer, ‘“No Normal Sport in an Abnormal Society” – Sports Isolation and the Struggle Against Apartheid in South African Sport, 1980-1992’, Southern Journal for Contemporary History, 25(1), 2000, pp.17-41
[2] Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), p.147.