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Israel is way more a European culture than it is Middle Eastern. This really is not a productive line of thinking, you know. As the Palestinians keep saying -

Israel is way more a European culture than it is Middle Eastern. This really is not a productive line of thinking, you know. As the Palestinians keep saying -- it make no difference to them where the settlers came from, or what their culture is. If anything it seems to indicate an unusual fixation on (what you perceive as) the essential traits of Israelis. Which in turn feeds into the right-wing propaganda that all serious criticism of Israeli policy and/or Zionism is fundamentally dishonest and driven by you-know-what. It's like candy to them, in fact. The only reason Australia participates is because of the shared European culture. Then start a campaign to have Australia booted out of Eurovision. Go ahead and shout down their performers every time they take the stage, whatever you gotta do. But if that's the only substantive point you have against Israel's participation -- it's an awfully weak one. And again, suggests a weird and lopsided fixation with the topic. [Morocco has] not participated since probably because of poor cultural fit. Their music is infinitely better than almost anything that makes it to the perennial Schlockfest that is Eurovision, for starters. But we digress here.

runarberg 2y ago
I agree, this is a weird fixation, I regret going down this rabbit hole. I’m personally a little obsessed with European colonialism, and I don’t think people give European colonialism enough credit for the horrors it caused. It really ought to be like slavery is to the US, but rather it is something people think of as inevitable and some people are even proud of. That said, I don’t care if Australia participates in Eurovision, even though it is yucky to think of it being a product of European settler colonialism (plus their songs usually suck), the current day Australian culture and politics is kind of divorced from that history of horrors now. I do want Israel booted of Eurovision though, not because they are not European enough for me, but because they engage in gross human rights violations. A country doing that has no business participating in international cultural events. > Their music is infinitely better than almost anything that makes it the perennial Schlockfest that is Eurovision Ohh, I deffinetly agree. Eurovision would benefit tremendously if Morocco would participate. I advocated for Bashar Murad this year actually (but couldn’t vote since I don’t live in Iceland any more). Even Greenland could help make Eurovision infinity better, regrettably Eurovision is too much of a colonialfest to ever allow Greenland to participate except via Denmark or Iceland. I did not watch Eurovision this year—the first time in my life—because of Israel’s participation. Despite the songs usually being very bad, I find the whole show to be enjoyable, ironically one of my favorite songs is Israel’s 1987 song. This year however, there was no joy to be found. And it pains me to say it, but I don’t think I will watch Eurovision ever again unless they start taking a firm stance against human rights abuses of participating countries.

runarberg 2y ago

I agree, this is a weird fixation, I regret going down this rabbit hole. I’m personally a little obsessed with European colonialism, and I don’t think people give European colonialism enough credit for the horrors it caused. It really ought to be like slavery is to the US, but rather it is something people think of as inevitable and some people are even proud of. That said, I don’t care if Australia participates in Eurovision, even though it is yucky to think of it being a product of European settler colonialism (plus their songs usually suck), the current day Australian culture and politics is kind of divorced from that history of horrors now. I do want Israel booted of Eurovision though, not because they are not European enough for me, but because they engage in gross human rights violations. A country doing that has no business participating in international cultural events. > Their music is infinitely better than almost anything that makes it the perennial Schlockfest that is Eurovision Ohh, I deffinetly agree. Eurovision would benefit tremendously if Morocco would participate. I advocated for Bashar Murad this year actually (but couldn’t vote since I don’t live in Iceland any more). Even Greenland could help make Eurovision infinity better, regrettably Eurovision is too much of a colonialfest to ever allow Greenland to participate except via Denmark or Iceland. I did not watch Eurovision this year—the first time in my life—because of Israel’s participation. Despite the songs usually being very bad, I find the whole show to be enjoyable, ironically one of my favorite songs is Israel’s 1987 song. This year however, there was no joy to be found. And it pains me to say it, but I don’t think I will watch Eurovision ever again unless they start taking a firm stance against human rights abuses of participating countries.