Just hours before this year’s Eurovision Song Contest final was set to begin on Saturday in Malmo, Sweden, around 5,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through the city center to protest Israel’s participation in the competition.
Waving huge Palestinian flags and accompanied by drummers, the protesters shouted slogans including, “Eurovision, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide,” and “Free, free Palestine.”
The demonstration, two days after a similar march in Malmo that the Swedish police said involved around 12,000 people, was the latest sign of some Eurovision fans’ discontent with Israel’s involvement in the high-profile contest because of the war in Gaza.
At Eurovision, singers representing their countries compete for votes from music-industry juries and a television audience. Although not part of Europe, Israel has competed since 1973 and won four times.
For months, pro-Palestinian groups have called on Eurovision’s organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, to ban Israel from the competition. Thousands of musicians, including pop stars and former Eurovision entrants, signed petitions that said there was a precedent for throwing Israel out of the event: In 2022, Eurovision banned Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The European Broadcasting Union has repeatedly dismissed the comparison and said Eurovision is an apolitical contest that aims to unite music fans, not divide them.
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Source: Music - nytimes.com
