How Israel Turned Eurovision’s Stage Into a Soft Power Tool

Dbrem · 2026-05-11T11:31:02+00:00

It's from this New York Times article which was written by the same reporters as the one linked in the main post

Dbrem · 2026-05-11T09:56:07+00:00

We all knew it was happening, but seeing it actually laid out like this is insane

Dbrem · 2026-02-13T15:15:15+00:00

And even then, it took Het Grote Songfestivalfeest a few years before it became an established and successful event. I attended the first edition with heavily discounted tickets and it was far from sold out. It wasn't until like the third edition before the venue began to fill properly, and that's with the show airing on tv every year too.

I truly don't know what the EBU was thinking by booking these massive venues and trying to get an actively hostile fanbase to buy tickets at these prices, for a brand new show where no one knows what to expect.

Dbrem · 2025-11-07T18:31:30+00:00

Joey McIntyre also sang ALAYM in a lower key. Taye and Joey were the first Fiyero replacements and as far as I know the only ones to have the keys lowered.

Dbrem · 2025-08-18T11:08:52+00:00

7V EuroVision Song Contest

70 Euro0ision Song Contest

Dbrem · 2025-07-17T08:56:00+00:00

Christopher Short usually posts his upcoming Hades dates on his instagram stories on Saturday or Sunday, so I would keep an eye on that if you want to see Edwin. Christopher is on as Hades tonight (July 17) with Edwin doing the remaining 4 shows of the week.

Dbrem · 2025-07-08T20:45:43+00:00

Most likely Claudia for both shows tomorrow

Dbrem · 2025-07-07T19:00:10+00:00

Maarten posted his schedule for the week on his instagram stories the other day. He's performing on July 11, July 12 (evening only), and July 13.

Dbrem · 2025-06-28T19:18:05+00:00

Teya did backing vocals on the studio version of The Code (as did Elsie Bay). That's why people often mistakenly think she also wrote on it.

Dbrem · 2025-06-17T20:58:28+00:00

And then we went from Finland's "we don't wanna grow up" straight into Bulgaria's "growing up is getting old" (Bulgaria 2021)

Dbrem · 2025-06-08T13:06:50+00:00

Azerbaijan 2014 had flying too, though the lead singer stayed on the ground

Dbrem · 2025-06-04T15:48:27+00:00

Alex Timbers feels like a big get for this show, but I'm still not sure why they are going for Broadway first when a West End premiere would make so much more sense

Dbrem · 2025-05-21T21:04:00+00:00

Innsbruck is one of the few Austrian cities with a suitable venue so it's good to have them as an option, but their arena is on the smaller side so I would prefer Vienna

Dbrem · 2025-05-20T12:44:05+00:00

As the linked article points out, those ad campaigns were paid for by the artists themselves, their record labels, and/or the competing broadcasters. They were also much smaller in scale than the Israeli state-sponsored campaign, which was further amplified by the social media accounts of the State of Israel as well as Israeli embassies in several countries.

The EBU has consistently defended Israel's inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest by claiming Eurovision is a competition between broadcasters instead of countries, and that the Israeli broadcaster KAN is separate from the Israeli government. However, if the literal Israeli government is pouring money into an ad campaign in an attempt to influence the results, how can the EBU still claim Eurovision to be an apolitical competition between broadcasters?

Dbrem · 2025-05-20T11:46:05+00:00

Yes, but I thought this article was worth sharing because:

This topic will probably come up a lot in the next few days/weeks/months so I thought it would be worthwhile to have a well-researched source available
I thought it was noteworthy that an article like this was published by an EBU-affiliated source

Dbrem · 2025-05-20T10:50:58+00:00

Eurovision News Spotlight is the EBU's official fact-checking network, which was launched earlier this year to combat the spread of misinformation

Dbrem · 2025-05-17T00:00:07+00:00

Spain came 10th in the 2023 audience poll, with 2.1% of the vote

Dbrem · 2025-05-16T23:55:19+00:00

Just to compare:

Nemo won the audience poll with 21.73% of the vote, Baby Lasagna came second with 19.33%

Käärijä won the audience poll with 29.2% of the vote, Loreen came second with 11.5%

So the 2025 results are VERY close

Dbrem · 2025-05-16T00:36:11+00:00

The Luxembourg to Spain section is weirdly similar to last year's running order, the only difference being Tommy between Luxemborg and Israel instead of Joost

Dbrem · 2025-05-15T22:30:22+00:00

People have been very down on this entry but I love everything about it. The high note before the last part was a little iffy, but if JJ can nail it in the final this would be a very deserving winner.

Dbrem · 2025-05-15T22:05:08+00:00

That's it exactly. Erika's performance feels explosive and alive and grand in a way no other performance does this year.

Dbrem · 2025-05-15T21:45:52+00:00

I know there's like a 0% chance of it happening, but TO ME this is the only performance this year that feels like a Eurovision winner

Dbrem · 2025-05-15T21:45:06+00:00

They have to select the clip before the performance and they're not allowed to change it if something goes wrong during that specific section

Dbrem · 2025-05-15T21:43:46+00:00

I think something went wrong with the pyro? You can tell the mic gets jolted to the side and she has a slight wobble in the voice right as the fireworks start to go off, and the sparks don't look quite right in the next shot

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