15 ms·

Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part

189 points by a_paddy 1y ago

throw8924389 1y ago
And yesterday the Munich Philharmonic was uninvited from an event in Brussel, because their conductor is from Israel. It's antisemitism, plain and simple. For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government. Compare to the countless global conflicts we have seen in the last decades, including the reactions and overreactions and including wars and military force and ask yourself, why Israel is singled out and moreover why individual jews that are living abroad are singled out.
- ath3nd 1y ago
  We ban Russian athletes because Russia is waging a war on Ukraine and the Russian head of state is a wanted war criminal. Israel should be double banned then because they are doing a proven genocide on the Palestinian population and their head of state is also a wanted war criminal. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Israeli_leaders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_a... It's like inviting Hitler supporters to a garden party. > For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government. If and while the US conduct a new genocide on a population (their previous one to the native American population is too far in history to judge the current US populace), I hope we don't invite their pop stars to sing for us.
  - rashkov 1y ago
    There's nothing proven about the genocide libel. That BBC article is about an association (IAGS) where anyone with $30 can join, whether they are a scholar or not. Twitter/X had a fun time with that over the last week, signing up as genocide scholars under ridiculous names. Furthermore IAGS has around 500 members, and only 129 of them voted with 86% of those supporting the resolution. Here's 514 scholars calling for IAGS to retract: https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/ https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/ “Genocide is the gravest offense known to humankind; to dilute its legal standards for ideological ends is a form of moral violence. It dishonors the memory of past victims, misleads the public about present atrocities, and obstructs efforts to avert future ones,” the Friday statement said.
    - grimblee 1y ago
      Stop bombing childrens that did nothing while promoting real estate on the rubles and we'll stop the libel.
    - ath3nd 1y ago
      I am not very interested in debating with a genocide apologist the finer points whether bombing hospitals, starving children and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population has to be approved as genocide by 98% or 99% of experts. There are people up to this very day who deny the Holocaust happened as well and call it a libel. Hitler was stopped regardless, the same will happen to the genocider Netanyahu. Its "Never again", not "Again, but this time we are doing it to others". Israel is doing a genocide.
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  The same munich philharmonic that fired their last conductor because of his unwillingness to denounce putin? Very interesting development! > because their conductor is from Israel I believe the issue is not that he is "from israel" but that he is currently the music director of the israeli philharmonic orchestra.
- grimblee 1y ago
  Anti-sionisme*
petercooper 1y ago
Apparently there are also countries demanding the opposite and saying they'll withdraw if Israel is excluded, including Germany: https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2025/09/iceland-some-countries-demand-israels-participation-including-germany/ https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2025/09/iceland-some-countries-... (not the best source IMHO, but I did see it casually mentioned in a BBC News piece as well)
- parthdesai 1y ago
  Germany has gone from one extreme to other extreme
  - danbruc 1y ago
    The German policy of more or less unconditional support for Israel is plain stupid. This policy exists because of the horrors that Germans have inflicted upon Jews but it now supports similar [1] horrors inflicted by Israelis upon Palestinians. I can not wrap my head around that. If anything, Germany should try to stop Israel with all available means to protect them from themselves. Germany should do the same as Ireland and so should everyone else. [1] Feel free to mentally replace similar with any other word that you think more accurately compares the two scenarios.
    - dfxm12 1y ago
      It's frustrating because Israelis and Jews are distinct peoples. This unwavering support for Israel doesn't even necessarily help Jews.
      - piltdownman 1y ago
        The Ultra-Orthodox can't even join the IDF. The issue is that the US HR Bill passed which legally equated Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism, and the US control the narrative in the english-speaking world around the Genocide. It's Orwellian in the extreme. https://www.thefire.org/news/combat-anti-semitism-house-bill-chips-away-free-speech https://www.thefire.org/news/combat-anti-semitism-house-bill... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/us-house-passes-controversial-bill-that-expands-definition-of-anti-semitism https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/us-house-passes-cont...
graemep 1y ago
What exactly are the criteria for participation. Being in Europe is not one of them - Israel is not in Europe, nor a few others, and Australia is literally as far away as you can get from Europe.
- haunter 1y ago
  Be an EBU member, technically even the US can participate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union
  - graemep 1y ago
    US is an associate member, but so is Australia so you are right. India, China, and Brazil are associate members too so they could all take part, potentially.
- a_paddy 1y ago
  Participation is based on membership of the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service media broadcasters.
  - tialaramex 1y ago
    A thing that's maybe not obvious to Americans, and maybe even Brits is that "Public Service Broadcaster" is a category based on why it was OK for this to broadcast on the radio frequency, rather than somehow related to how it's funded. So, NBC etc. in the US are Public Service Broadcasters, whereas a local not-for-profit that has laid their own coax in your city is not a PSB. In the UK ITV is a PSB, as well as the BBC (which you probably think of) and Channel 4 (which is owned by the state) but if your local school media team uploads local affairs videos to Youtube that's not a PSB. The idea is there's finite radio bandwidth, the government has decided it gets to decide who uses that bandwidth and how, and so a PSB is an entity which got licensed to use some of that finite space to do something approved. Government policies might require or forbid certain programming, for example maybe you can't advertise cigarettes or you can't swear, but you must have a news show every weekday evening. The EBU exists because of this same bandwidth issue. Radio doesn't care about politics, so even if adjacent country A and country B hate each other and have closed their borders, the radio waves from A propagate to B and vice versa. So radio "regions" exist which try to duck the politics as much as possible to focus on practicalities. That they don't fully duck politics is how we end up with Israel in Europe but not its immediate neighbours...
boxed 1y ago
Sour grapes after having Israel crush them in the competition.
- myth_drannon 1y ago
  yes, last year Ireland's entry was truly awful. They should definitely leave because their music is bad.
  - boxed 1y ago
    Ultimately I think it comes down to not having a strong local competition. Countries that don't have local competitions with similar rule sets should be expected to perform badly.
- oliwarner 1y ago
  Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes, as well as far fewer plays on Spotify ahead of voting. Belgium counted +10% votes with -50% viewers (they didn't qualify). Spain, The Netherlands and Ireland also registering similar concerns. The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily. I'm not defending Ireland's performance but Israel's was objectively mediocre too. Eurovision voting is historically biased but it was weird last year.
  - boxed 1y ago
    > Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes, That's almost always the case. And both groups were agreed that Ireland wasn't very good :P > The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily. Did you just complain that people voted? Seriously?
    - oliwarner 1y ago
      > Did you just complain that people voted? No, several national broadcasters did.
przems 1y ago
I am glad to see this news and I hope more countries join in. Their efforts to sneak in pro-genocidal messaging through song lyrics, the buying of YouTube ads in most European countries to get as many votes as possible, and the ongoing attempts by EBU to silence all voices that are critical of their efforts to exterminate the people whose land they're occupying; it all makes me disgusted to see countries like Germany coming out with the opposite announcement of boycotting ESC if Israel won't be able to participate. Of course, EBU will not disqualify Israel from Eurovision, and the reason is obvious for anyone who has checked the list of their sponsors.
- sim7c00 1y ago
  its a rich mans world...
- freechoice913 1y ago
  I didn't watch Israel's song. I didn't watch any youtube ads (thanks adblock), yet I spent 20 euros on Israel to stop the shameful anti Israel discourse.
  - a_paddy 1y ago
    I'm genuinely interested in hearing what you consider shameful about the current discourse about Israel?
    - freechoice913 1y ago
      If it's not evident I can't do much. The constant outpour of media content that depicts Israel as cruel and unfair despite there being no real story. The constant conflation of Israel with antisemitic stereotypes. The denial of Israel's right to exist in both subtle and gross ways. European left isn't giving any path to Israel to get respect, they will attack Israel no matter what they do.
      - 0points 1y ago
        The sooner you stop seeing this as a "right vs left" debate and start seeing it as a human catastrophe, the sooner you will start to understand why some people take issue in what Israel is currently doing. > there being no real story. Ok, dude. I cannot educate you if you actively refuse to follow the news.
Nexxxeh 1y ago
[flagged]
- a_paddy 1y ago
  How is this antisemitism? This is happening because of actions of a state, not the religion of some of it's population.
  - hn_go_brrrrr 1y ago
    GP didn't say this action is antisemitic, just that there are rising levels of antisemitism in Ireland. If the latter is true, though, it does suggest that this action is likely motivated by antisemitism. That is, not everyone opposing Israel is antisemitic, but all the antisemites oppose Israel.
    - clot27 1y ago
      > but all the antisemites oppose Israel Surprise surprise, many evangelical christians are zionist and anti semite at the same time.
      - tdeck 1y ago
        Supporting Israel is a great way to get organizations like the ADL off your back when you're being antisemitic. Look at Elon Musk - he was having trouble and being sued because of all the Nazis he encouraged on Twitter, but he took a PR trip to Israel and put on some dog tags. Now he can throw out a Sieg Heil in public and the ADL says it's OK because their only real priority these days is PR for Israel.
      - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
        I'm not aware of there being many evangelical Christians in Ireland - and a quick search indicates that Ireland has the lowest percentage of evangelicals across the english speaking world
    - Thiez 1y ago
clot27 1y ago
Good, Israel must be boycotted.
- sammy2255 1y ago
  Why?
  - thinkingtoilet 1y ago
    Sigh...
  - Simulacra 1y ago
    Antisemitism
    - clot27 1y ago
      give up bro, no one buy this anymore.
      - ajay-b 1y ago
        [flagged]
        clot27 1y ago
        wdym
  - noboostforyou 1y ago
    Do you consider genocide a bad thing? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel-gaza-war-children-death-toll/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel...
  - danbruc 1y ago
    Because the goal of the Zionists has always been to conquer all of Palestine and the State of Israel has been following those foot steps since day one. From the river to the sea. This has been declared illegal under international law more than half a century ago but Israel does not care about the law. Therefore Israel should be forced to comply, which means boycotts and sanctions or military force. And we should probably try boycotts and sanctions first before we send tanks. Which is unlikely to happen any time soon anyway as that would mean opposing the USA and we have seen in recent history what happens to people and countries supporting the Palestinians.
KingLancelot 1y ago
[dead]
tibbydudeza 1y ago
Eurovision - we shall not miss you :).
myth_drannon 1y ago
[flagged]
- piltdownman 1y ago
  Re: Emily Hand - This was immediately clarified as Eli Cohen taking offense at common phraseology to make anti-semitic strawmen as per usual. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clwpz157v1go https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clwpz157v1go The rest is just Zionist alternate-reality ranting, but I'll sign-off by pointing out that our Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence from 2011 to 2014 is Jewish and worked in Kibbutz' in Israel during his teens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shatter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shatter Chaim Herzog, sixth president of Israel from 1983 to 1993, was born in Belfast and educated in Dublin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, his father and a fluent Irish speaker, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, 1921 to 1936. From 1936 until his death in 1959, he was Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, and subsequently Israel after its creation in 1948. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_HaLevi_Herzog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_HaLevi_Herzog And finally the protagonist of James Joyce's Ulysses - Leopold Bloom - is Jewish, in what is effectively our national narrative.
  - myth_drannon 1y ago
    A list of Irish jews, and? Einstein was a German Jew so suddenly Nazi Germany is ok? Half of Israel's initial PMs and Presidents were from Russia, does it make it a heaven for Jews?
- sillyfluke 1y ago
  What ridiculously self-serving drivel. By that logic there is hardly any place in Europe you should be visiting since most at one time or another were led by fascistic governments. Spain fought a civil war to get rid of that garbage. Your opinion is probably not shared by many Jews who recently obtained Spanish citizenship as descendents of those who fled the country in the past. Wait till you find out about the American stance to Jewish refugees during World War 2.
kklisura 1y ago
> consider Israel’s presence essential. Why, why is it essential?
- alkyon 1y ago
  It adds to drama. This year Israel had a rather weak song and got very few votes from the jury. But then it almost won thanks to the majority of votes from text messages. Pure magic.
  - sillyfluke 1y ago
    What's more amusing is that they strategically came in second place after that bizarre voting. Apparently if they had come first, the final next year would have to be in Tel Aviv as per the rules. Now that would be drama. That seemingly was a bridge too far even for them.
  - beAbU 1y ago
    A few countries, including Ireland, called into question the text voting results for Israel last year. Not sure what the result of that investigation was.
duxup 1y ago
Eurovision is that cultural thing that I hear about but I just don't get. It probably is as simple as I think it is, but it gets attention that makes me think it is more important and I must be missing something.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  It's like the Olympics or World Cup but for cheesy pop music.
  - duxup 1y ago
    The Olympics kinda fits my perception, very important at the moment and folks really get into it... but everyone moves on a week later.
- piltdownman 1y ago
  It's a hyper-kitsch activity that transcends age and cultural boundaries. In Ireland in particular it's a huge event in the LGBTQ+ calendar - bizarrely enough in large part to Dana International, a pioneer of Israel's LGBTQ+ community who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998.
- port11 1y ago
  It's not as huge as the coverage of it makes it seem, I think. But many Europeans grew up with it. It was something you'd watch with the whole family, and you have some great laughs at how ridiculous it all is. But I have to say that, nearing 40, I no longer care about it. Without the family around to watch it, it's just another bit of TV I ignore. None of the people I know, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, care either. Still, the media coverage seems to do a lot of heavy lifting to make it seem popular.
- croon 1y ago
  It is exactly as simple as you think it is, but also not, as all cultural influences on politics through history has shown. Everything from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to CIA funding Jackson Pollock (and Kooning, Rothko, etc) to Metallica playing in Moscow in 1991. Though competing with the deluge of internet media, Eurovision probably has a lot less impact.
dukodk 1y ago
It’s funny how fast these kinda discussions dissapear from the front page, anyone know if there are any statistics on this?
- ath3nd 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tdeck 1y ago
    The wildest one was the Tom Alexandrovich story. That guy literally committed sex crimes while in town for a tech conference and was let off - he works in our field, but it immediately got buried.
  - krageon 1y ago
    Palantir is openly named after a device of fantasy Satan. I don't think we need to wonder how evil they're being, it's always worse that you think they're being. That's what they're for.
  - giraffe_lady 1y ago
    The moderator dang has actually responded to several comments about their editorial stance re israel-palestine. I don't have time to find them but I've engaged with him personally on this several times over the last couple years. Basically it boils down to he thinks we have talked about it enough and it annoys him how upset people are about it. And ultimately he considers admiring the technology used in war machines (and terrorism like the pager attack) to be clearly within the editorial remit of HN but that discussing their effects on the people they are used on is borderline so they police it more vigorously.
    - ath3nd 1y ago
      Ah, they are annoyed that people are upset about the genocide and keep talking about it. Very interesting. Well, that's their right, of course, annoyed that people are not closing their eyes to blatant human rights violations and genocide. I will keep calling it out for what it is: Israel is a genocider state, until it's stopped.
duxup 1y ago
Like many such articles surrounding any hint of negativity and Israel, this one is inevitably flagged.
- EvgeniyZh 1y ago
  What are you talking about? There were multiple anti-Israeli articles on main and in top (150+ votes) [1-7], including Al Jazeera, funded by same people who fund Hamas. I can't remember any single pro-Israeli article that wasn't flagged to death. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44576782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44576782 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44496391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44496391 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467375 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550
  - duxup 1y ago
    I'm talking about exactly what I said. The existence of any other articles (as far back as 2023...) that aren't flagged to death doesn't change that.
    - EvgeniyZh 1y ago
      Well clearly this one isn't flagged. Hope you update your priors
      - Schmerika 1y ago
        This thread was in fact flagged for quite some time, so... Even after being manually unflagged following user requests, the false flag will have impacted its rank in the HN algorithm. For the record, OP is entirely correct to assert that anti Israel stuff is always quickly flagged here. I've seen it many, many many times. Very often it isn't ever unflagged, despite being extremely relevant to this crowd. My priors inspired me to look if strenuously denying live-streamed genocide and repeating bad Hasbara are regular pastimes from your account. It gave me no joy to see I was correct.
xenospn 1y ago
Ireland was also the only country to send official condolences to Germany after hitler died. Nothing new under the sun.
- Anthony-G 1y ago
  That was probably de Valera’s worst judgement call and he was strongly advised against it at the time. Still, the actual history is a lot more nuanced than that. There’s no evidence that de Valera was anti-Semitic. His 1937 constitution for the Irish state specifically recognised “Jewish Congregations” in its Article 44 (Religion). While claiming in public to be neutral during the Second World War, the Irish state imprisoned Axis pilots who crashed in Ireland but downed Allied pilots were quietly repatriated. For more details: https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2025/05/02/de-valeras-condolences-on-the-death-of-hitler-continue-to-provoke-80-years-on/ https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2025/05/02/de-valeras-con...
Yizahi 1y ago
Meanwhile Irish President just recently met with Qatar sheikh and wished him good health and discussed cooperation and investments. Thats in full knowledge that they have orchestrated kidnapping of civilians, indiscriminate rocket bombings and other crimes. So trading with terrorist bankers and protectors, giving them money and influence is just business as usual. While when a dozen citizen of the victim country are visiting EU it's a haram and no no. Hypocrites and terrorist friends, that's who they are.
- alkyon 1y ago
  Trump visited Qatar this year in May (Irish president 2 months ago). He also discussed cooperation and investment. Your arguments is flawed. Most likely you're mistaking Qatar for some other country.
  - alkyon 1y ago
    "The White House announced that the US and Qatar had inked deals worth at least $1.2 trillion, including a major transaction which would see Qatar Airways buy 210 aircraft from the US company Boeing." So US president also shook hand of this diabolical emir of Qatar :)
  - wickedsickeune 1y ago
    The parent poster is implying that Qatar is funding / helping Hamas, and by proxy kidnaps / rocket bombs civilians etc.
    - alkyon 1y ago
      Reality is more complex then that. Qatar has been sending millions to Gaza (and transitively to Hamas) for years. Important point is that Israel was aware of it and even approved of it - more details here: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-funds-israel-backing-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-fu... The parent really should be attacking the US (of which Qatar is "a major non-NATO ally") and Israel ("Netanyahu continued the cash flow to Hamas, despite concerns raised from within his own government"). I don't see any reason to be so aggressive towards Ireland of all the stakeholders.
stopthebullshit 1y ago
[flagged]
- clot27 1y ago
  Not once anyone in this thread blamed jews for what israel does as far as I can see. Stop conflating jews with israel. Israel is fucking state, jews are people.
runarberg 1y ago
Iceland made a similar—albeit a bit more vague—announcement, and as an Icelander and an ex-Eurovision fan, I have to say this is far too little and far too late. If this boycott would have been announced 2 years ago, I would have celebrated, and maybe it could have had an impact, but at this point a handful of countries announcing boycotts is not gonna have any meaningful impact. In my opinion the head of the respective radios need to apologies for not acting sooner, and they not only need to boycott, but actively try to prevent Eurovision from being held this next year if Israel is allowed to participate. A good start would be to sue the EBU, or to hold an alternative competition.

189 points by a_paddy 1y ago

And yesterday the Munich Philharmonic was uninvited from an event in Brussel, because their conductor is from Israel. It's antisemitism, plain and simple. For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government. Compare to the countless global conflicts we have seen in the last decades, including the reactions and overreactions and including wars and military force and ask yourself, why Israel is singled out and moreover why individual jews that are living abroad are singled out.

ath3nd 1y ago
We ban Russian athletes because Russia is waging a war on Ukraine and the Russian head of state is a wanted war criminal. Israel should be double banned then because they are doing a proven genocide on the Palestinian population and their head of state is also a wanted war criminal. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Israeli_leaders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_a... It's like inviting Hitler supporters to a garden party. > For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government. If and while the US conduct a new genocide on a population (their previous one to the native American population is too far in history to judge the current US populace), I hope we don't invite their pop stars to sing for us.
- rashkov 1y ago
  There's nothing proven about the genocide libel. That BBC article is about an association (IAGS) where anyone with $30 can join, whether they are a scholar or not. Twitter/X had a fun time with that over the last week, signing up as genocide scholars under ridiculous names. Furthermore IAGS has around 500 members, and only 129 of them voted with 86% of those supporting the resolution. Here's 514 scholars calling for IAGS to retract: https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/ https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/ “Genocide is the gravest offense known to humankind; to dilute its legal standards for ideological ends is a form of moral violence. It dishonors the memory of past victims, misleads the public about present atrocities, and obstructs efforts to avert future ones,” the Friday statement said.
  - grimblee 1y ago
    Stop bombing childrens that did nothing while promoting real estate on the rubles and we'll stop the libel.
  - ath3nd 1y ago
    I am not very interested in debating with a genocide apologist the finer points whether bombing hospitals, starving children and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population has to be approved as genocide by 98% or 99% of experts. There are people up to this very day who deny the Holocaust happened as well and call it a libel. Hitler was stopped regardless, the same will happen to the genocider Netanyahu. Its "Never again", not "Again, but this time we are doing it to others". Israel is doing a genocide.
giraffe_lady 1y ago
The same munich philharmonic that fired their last conductor because of his unwillingness to denounce putin? Very interesting development! > because their conductor is from Israel I believe the issue is not that he is "from israel" but that he is currently the music director of the israeli philharmonic orchestra.
grimblee 1y ago
Anti-sionisme*

petercooper 1y ago

Apparently there are also countries demanding the opposite and saying they'll withdraw if Israel is excluded, including Germany: https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2025/09/iceland-some-countries-demand-israels-participation-including-germany/ https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2025/09/iceland-some-countries-... (not the best source IMHO, but I did see it casually mentioned in a BBC News piece as well)

parthdesai 1y ago
Germany has gone from one extreme to other extreme
- danbruc 1y ago
  The German policy of more or less unconditional support for Israel is plain stupid. This policy exists because of the horrors that Germans have inflicted upon Jews but it now supports similar [1] horrors inflicted by Israelis upon Palestinians. I can not wrap my head around that. If anything, Germany should try to stop Israel with all available means to protect them from themselves. Germany should do the same as Ireland and so should everyone else. [1] Feel free to mentally replace similar with any other word that you think more accurately compares the two scenarios.
  - dfxm12 1y ago
    It's frustrating because Israelis and Jews are distinct peoples. This unwavering support for Israel doesn't even necessarily help Jews.
    - piltdownman 1y ago
      The Ultra-Orthodox can't even join the IDF. The issue is that the US HR Bill passed which legally equated Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism, and the US control the narrative in the english-speaking world around the Genocide. It's Orwellian in the extreme. https://www.thefire.org/news/combat-anti-semitism-house-bill-chips-away-free-speech https://www.thefire.org/news/combat-anti-semitism-house-bill... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/us-house-passes-controversial-bill-that-expands-definition-of-anti-semitism https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/us-house-passes-cont...

graemep 1y ago

What exactly are the criteria for participation. Being in Europe is not one of them - Israel is not in Europe, nor a few others, and Australia is literally as far away as you can get from Europe.

haunter 1y ago
Be an EBU member, technically even the US can participate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union
- graemep 1y ago
  US is an associate member, but so is Australia so you are right. India, China, and Brazil are associate members too so they could all take part, potentially.
a_paddy 1y ago
Participation is based on membership of the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service media broadcasters.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  A thing that's maybe not obvious to Americans, and maybe even Brits is that "Public Service Broadcaster" is a category based on why it was OK for this to broadcast on the radio frequency, rather than somehow related to how it's funded. So, NBC etc. in the US are Public Service Broadcasters, whereas a local not-for-profit that has laid their own coax in your city is not a PSB. In the UK ITV is a PSB, as well as the BBC (which you probably think of) and Channel 4 (which is owned by the state) but if your local school media team uploads local affairs videos to Youtube that's not a PSB. The idea is there's finite radio bandwidth, the government has decided it gets to decide who uses that bandwidth and how, and so a PSB is an entity which got licensed to use some of that finite space to do something approved. Government policies might require or forbid certain programming, for example maybe you can't advertise cigarettes or you can't swear, but you must have a news show every weekday evening. The EBU exists because of this same bandwidth issue. Radio doesn't care about politics, so even if adjacent country A and country B hate each other and have closed their borders, the radio waves from A propagate to B and vice versa. So radio "regions" exist which try to duck the politics as much as possible to focus on practicalities. That they don't fully duck politics is how we end up with Israel in Europe but not its immediate neighbours...

boxed 1y ago

Sour grapes after having Israel crush them in the competition.

myth_drannon 1y ago
yes, last year Ireland's entry was truly awful. They should definitely leave because their music is bad.
- boxed 1y ago
  Ultimately I think it comes down to not having a strong local competition. Countries that don't have local competitions with similar rule sets should be expected to perform badly.
oliwarner 1y ago
Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes, as well as far fewer plays on Spotify ahead of voting. Belgium counted +10% votes with -50% viewers (they didn't qualify). Spain, The Netherlands and Ireland also registering similar concerns. The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily. I'm not defending Ireland's performance but Israel's was objectively mediocre too. Eurovision voting is historically biased but it was weird last year.
- boxed 1y ago
  > Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes, That's almost always the case. And both groups were agreed that Ireland wasn't very good :P > The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily. Did you just complain that people voted? Seriously?
  - oliwarner 1y ago
    > Did you just complain that people voted? No, several national broadcasters did.

przems 1y ago

I am glad to see this news and I hope more countries join in. Their efforts to sneak in pro-genocidal messaging through song lyrics, the buying of YouTube ads in most European countries to get as many votes as possible, and the ongoing attempts by EBU to silence all voices that are critical of their efforts to exterminate the people whose land they're occupying; it all makes me disgusted to see countries like Germany coming out with the opposite announcement of boycotting ESC if Israel won't be able to participate. Of course, EBU will not disqualify Israel from Eurovision, and the reason is obvious for anyone who has checked the list of their sponsors.

sim7c00 1y ago
its a rich mans world...
freechoice913 1y ago
I didn't watch Israel's song. I didn't watch any youtube ads (thanks adblock), yet I spent 20 euros on Israel to stop the shameful anti Israel discourse.
- a_paddy 1y ago
  I'm genuinely interested in hearing what you consider shameful about the current discourse about Israel?
  - freechoice913 1y ago
    If it's not evident I can't do much. The constant outpour of media content that depicts Israel as cruel and unfair despite there being no real story. The constant conflation of Israel with antisemitic stereotypes. The denial of Israel's right to exist in both subtle and gross ways. European left isn't giving any path to Israel to get respect, they will attack Israel no matter what they do.
    - 0points 1y ago
      The sooner you stop seeing this as a "right vs left" debate and start seeing it as a human catastrophe, the sooner you will start to understand why some people take issue in what Israel is currently doing. > there being no real story. Ok, dude. I cannot educate you if you actively refuse to follow the news.

Nexxxeh 1y ago

[flagged]

a_paddy 1y ago
How is this antisemitism? This is happening because of actions of a state, not the religion of some of it's population.
- hn_go_brrrrr 1y ago
  GP didn't say this action is antisemitic, just that there are rising levels of antisemitism in Ireland. If the latter is true, though, it does suggest that this action is likely motivated by antisemitism. That is, not everyone opposing Israel is antisemitic, but all the antisemites oppose Israel.
  - clot27 1y ago
    > but all the antisemites oppose Israel Surprise surprise, many evangelical christians are zionist and anti semite at the same time.
    - tdeck 1y ago
      Supporting Israel is a great way to get organizations like the ADL off your back when you're being antisemitic. Look at Elon Musk - he was having trouble and being sued because of all the Nazis he encouraged on Twitter, but he took a PR trip to Israel and put on some dog tags. Now he can throw out a Sieg Heil in public and the ADL says it's OK because their only real priority these days is PR for Israel.
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      I'm not aware of there being many evangelical Christians in Ireland - and a quick search indicates that Ireland has the lowest percentage of evangelicals across the english speaking world
  - Thiez 1y ago

clot27 1y ago

Good, Israel must be boycotted.

sammy2255 1y ago
Why?
- thinkingtoilet 1y ago
  Sigh...
- Simulacra 1y ago
  Antisemitism
  - clot27 1y ago
    give up bro, no one buy this anymore.
    - ajay-b 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - clot27 1y ago
        wdym
- noboostforyou 1y ago
  Do you consider genocide a bad thing? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel-gaza-war-children-death-toll/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel...
- danbruc 1y ago
  Because the goal of the Zionists has always been to conquer all of Palestine and the State of Israel has been following those foot steps since day one. From the river to the sea. This has been declared illegal under international law more than half a century ago but Israel does not care about the law. Therefore Israel should be forced to comply, which means boycotts and sanctions or military force. And we should probably try boycotts and sanctions first before we send tanks. Which is unlikely to happen any time soon anyway as that would mean opposing the USA and we have seen in recent history what happens to people and countries supporting the Palestinians.

KingLancelot 1y ago

[dead]

tibbydudeza 1y ago

Eurovision - we shall not miss you :).

myth_drannon 1y ago

[flagged]

piltdownman 1y ago
Re: Emily Hand - This was immediately clarified as Eli Cohen taking offense at common phraseology to make anti-semitic strawmen as per usual. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clwpz157v1go https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clwpz157v1go The rest is just Zionist alternate-reality ranting, but I'll sign-off by pointing out that our Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence from 2011 to 2014 is Jewish and worked in Kibbutz' in Israel during his teens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shatter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shatter Chaim Herzog, sixth president of Israel from 1983 to 1993, was born in Belfast and educated in Dublin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Herzog Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, his father and a fluent Irish speaker, was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, 1921 to 1936. From 1936 until his death in 1959, he was Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, and subsequently Israel after its creation in 1948. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_HaLevi_Herzog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_HaLevi_Herzog And finally the protagonist of James Joyce's Ulysses - Leopold Bloom - is Jewish, in what is effectively our national narrative.
- myth_drannon 1y ago
  A list of Irish jews, and? Einstein was a German Jew so suddenly Nazi Germany is ok? Half of Israel's initial PMs and Presidents were from Russia, does it make it a heaven for Jews?
sillyfluke 1y ago
What ridiculously self-serving drivel. By that logic there is hardly any place in Europe you should be visiting since most at one time or another were led by fascistic governments. Spain fought a civil war to get rid of that garbage. Your opinion is probably not shared by many Jews who recently obtained Spanish citizenship as descendents of those who fled the country in the past. Wait till you find out about the American stance to Jewish refugees during World War 2.

kklisura 1y ago

> consider Israel’s presence essential. Why, why is it essential?

alkyon 1y ago
It adds to drama. This year Israel had a rather weak song and got very few votes from the jury. But then it almost won thanks to the majority of votes from text messages. Pure magic.
- sillyfluke 1y ago
  What's more amusing is that they strategically came in second place after that bizarre voting. Apparently if they had come first, the final next year would have to be in Tel Aviv as per the rules. Now that would be drama. That seemingly was a bridge too far even for them.
- beAbU 1y ago
  A few countries, including Ireland, called into question the text voting results for Israel last year. Not sure what the result of that investigation was.

duxup 1y ago

Eurovision is that cultural thing that I hear about but I just don't get. It probably is as simple as I think it is, but it gets attention that makes me think it is more important and I must be missing something.

AlecSchueler 1y ago
It's like the Olympics or World Cup but for cheesy pop music.
- duxup 1y ago
  The Olympics kinda fits my perception, very important at the moment and folks really get into it... but everyone moves on a week later.
piltdownman 1y ago
It's a hyper-kitsch activity that transcends age and cultural boundaries. In Ireland in particular it's a huge event in the LGBTQ+ calendar - bizarrely enough in large part to Dana International, a pioneer of Israel's LGBTQ+ community who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998.
port11 1y ago
It's not as huge as the coverage of it makes it seem, I think. But many Europeans grew up with it. It was something you'd watch with the whole family, and you have some great laughs at how ridiculous it all is. But I have to say that, nearing 40, I no longer care about it. Without the family around to watch it, it's just another bit of TV I ignore. None of the people I know, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, care either. Still, the media coverage seems to do a lot of heavy lifting to make it seem popular.
croon 1y ago
It is exactly as simple as you think it is, but also not, as all cultural influences on politics through history has shown. Everything from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to CIA funding Jackson Pollock (and Kooning, Rothko, etc) to Metallica playing in Moscow in 1991. Though competing with the deluge of internet media, Eurovision probably has a lot less impact.

dukodk 1y ago

It’s funny how fast these kinda discussions dissapear from the front page, anyone know if there are any statistics on this?

ath3nd 1y ago
[flagged]
- tdeck 1y ago
  The wildest one was the Tom Alexandrovich story. That guy literally committed sex crimes while in town for a tech conference and was let off - he works in our field, but it immediately got buried.
- krageon 1y ago
  Palantir is openly named after a device of fantasy Satan. I don't think we need to wonder how evil they're being, it's always worse that you think they're being. That's what they're for.
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  The moderator dang has actually responded to several comments about their editorial stance re israel-palestine. I don't have time to find them but I've engaged with him personally on this several times over the last couple years. Basically it boils down to he thinks we have talked about it enough and it annoys him how upset people are about it. And ultimately he considers admiring the technology used in war machines (and terrorism like the pager attack) to be clearly within the editorial remit of HN but that discussing their effects on the people they are used on is borderline so they police it more vigorously.
  - ath3nd 1y ago
    Ah, they are annoyed that people are upset about the genocide and keep talking about it. Very interesting. Well, that's their right, of course, annoyed that people are not closing their eyes to blatant human rights violations and genocide. I will keep calling it out for what it is: Israel is a genocider state, until it's stopped.

duxup 1y ago

Like many such articles surrounding any hint of negativity and Israel, this one is inevitably flagged.

EvgeniyZh 1y ago
What are you talking about? There were multiple anti-Israeli articles on main and in top (150+ votes) [1-7], including Al Jazeera, funded by same people who fund Hamas. I can't remember any single pro-Israeli article that wasn't flagged to death. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44576782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44576782 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44496391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44496391 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467375 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550
- duxup 1y ago
  I'm talking about exactly what I said. The existence of any other articles (as far back as 2023...) that aren't flagged to death doesn't change that.
  - EvgeniyZh 1y ago
    Well clearly this one isn't flagged. Hope you update your priors
    - Schmerika 1y ago
      This thread was in fact flagged for quite some time, so... Even after being manually unflagged following user requests, the false flag will have impacted its rank in the HN algorithm. For the record, OP is entirely correct to assert that anti Israel stuff is always quickly flagged here. I've seen it many, many many times. Very often it isn't ever unflagged, despite being extremely relevant to this crowd. My priors inspired me to look if strenuously denying live-streamed genocide and repeating bad Hasbara are regular pastimes from your account. It gave me no joy to see I was correct.

xenospn 1y ago

Ireland was also the only country to send official condolences to Germany after hitler died. Nothing new under the sun.

Anthony-G 1y ago
That was probably de Valera’s worst judgement call and he was strongly advised against it at the time. Still, the actual history is a lot more nuanced than that. There’s no evidence that de Valera was anti-Semitic. His 1937 constitution for the Irish state specifically recognised “Jewish Congregations” in its Article 44 (Religion). While claiming in public to be neutral during the Second World War, the Irish state imprisoned Axis pilots who crashed in Ireland but downed Allied pilots were quietly repatriated. For more details: https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2025/05/02/de-valeras-condolences-on-the-death-of-hitler-continue-to-provoke-80-years-on/ https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2025/05/02/de-valeras-con...

Yizahi 1y ago

Meanwhile Irish President just recently met with Qatar sheikh and wished him good health and discussed cooperation and investments. Thats in full knowledge that they have orchestrated kidnapping of civilians, indiscriminate rocket bombings and other crimes. So trading with terrorist bankers and protectors, giving them money and influence is just business as usual. While when a dozen citizen of the victim country are visiting EU it's a haram and no no. Hypocrites and terrorist friends, that's who they are.

alkyon 1y ago
Trump visited Qatar this year in May (Irish president 2 months ago). He also discussed cooperation and investment. Your arguments is flawed. Most likely you're mistaking Qatar for some other country.
- alkyon 1y ago
  "The White House announced that the US and Qatar had inked deals worth at least $1.2 trillion, including a major transaction which would see Qatar Airways buy 210 aircraft from the US company Boeing." So US president also shook hand of this diabolical emir of Qatar :)
- wickedsickeune 1y ago
  The parent poster is implying that Qatar is funding / helping Hamas, and by proxy kidnaps / rocket bombs civilians etc.
  - alkyon 1y ago
    Reality is more complex then that. Qatar has been sending millions to Gaza (and transitively to Hamas) for years. Important point is that Israel was aware of it and even approved of it - more details here: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-funds-israel-backing-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-fu... The parent really should be attacking the US (of which Qatar is "a major non-NATO ally") and Israel ("Netanyahu continued the cash flow to Hamas, despite concerns raised from within his own government"). I don't see any reason to be so aggressive towards Ireland of all the stakeholders.

stopthebullshit 1y ago

[flagged]

clot27 1y ago
Not once anyone in this thread blamed jews for what israel does as far as I can see. Stop conflating jews with israel. Israel is fucking state, jews are people.

runarberg 1y ago

Iceland made a similar—albeit a bit more vague—announcement, and as an Icelander and an ex-Eurovision fan, I have to say this is far too little and far too late. If this boycott would have been announced 2 years ago, I would have celebrated, and maybe it could have had an impact, but at this point a handful of countries announcing boycotts is not gonna have any meaningful impact. In my opinion the head of the respective radios need to apologies for not acting sooner, and they not only need to boycott, but actively try to prevent Eurovision from being held this next year if Israel is allowed to participate. A good start would be to sue the EBU, or to hold an alternative competition.