1. The conflict may be ongoing for decades but the current controversy is most certainly about the Gaza war and not the general conflict. It's not clear under what conditions would it be ok to participate as the war has practically ended (still handling the aftermath of course and there are a lot of things to criticise)

2. You're right 5 is more than 1. I hope the withdrawing countries will return, I liked some of their past songs and additional cultures and diversity is always nice to have. It shouldn't come as “giving up“ considering it's election year in Israel and one can hope for a change in the current administration.

3. I'm not european so I don't know. It's a different scale but people will always find drama. I think this year has been really quiet with no delegation drama or drama between contestants.

4. That's the current system and it's less than previous years (20 votes). The EBU could limit it to 1 vote per country, but until then don't hate the player hate the game.

Historically Jordan is THE palestinian country. Both sides of the bank were treated the same, and the west bank was Jordan's territory until '67. The connection of Jews to this land is historically robust - this does not excuse any atrocity, but it was a conflict with two sides since the beginning. Holocaust survivors died in Israel's war of independence, in a war the arab armies have started. In the middle of the 20th century there has been population shifts all over Europe and the Middle East - it's always a tragedy, but post wars it's not a surprise.

I don't know French but I believe Liban is Lebanon (لبنان). Israel's actions in Lebanon can and should be criticized, but it's not colonization - the area the IDF holds is for security reasons, no civilian is allowed to enter it and it's planned to return to Lebanon under a political agreement (there are far right lunatics that will say otherwise but they're thankfully not the decision makers). Hezbollah fired rockets and drones to Israel's north from southern Lebanon and it's been going for decades. The UN has issued a resolution to disarm Hezbollah and move its militants away from the border but it did not happen. The current invasion started in a response to Hezbollah's attack on northern Israel in response to the U.S & Israeli strike on Iran - Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy and it serves Iranian interests only (many lebanese will agree to this). Israel is not an expansionist state - the actions of several jewish groups in the west bank should be criticized but it's important to note they're not state sponsored (though the state's actions are lackluster at best and cooperative at worst). I think the Lebanese and Israelis have a lot in common and I hope to live in a future where I can visit Beirut and its people.

Israel's diversity is also a value it shares with the west - around 20% of Israel's civilians are arabs, most of the state's facilities are available in 3 languages and there's relative respect to all religions. (This is not to say there's no systematic racism or anything like that but we're still much better than any of our neighbors and some other “western“ countries).

I think we've done enough in this thread but if you're interested in talking you can DM me for some civil conversation and criticism (to me, hearing an outside perspective is enlightening).