#attack on eurovision

[nando161mando]

A sea of protesters gathered in Malmo, Sweden today to show solidarity with Palestine and protest against Israel's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

[thund3randrain]

We have become the capitol

[matan4il]

I'm gonna put it as simply and blatantly as possible.

Russia in 2022 attacked another Eurovision participant and made a whole bunch of other contestant countries scared of being attacked next, after already having attacked a fellow competitor in 2008 -> Russia got banned from Eurovision

Ukraine in 2022 got attacked, had its civilians targeted intentionally, did not choose to start the war, has no record of past attacks against ESC contestants, and is not currently posing a threat to any other Eurovision participating country -> Ukraine did not get banned

Israel in 2023 got attacked, had its civilians targeted intentionally, did not choose to start the war, has no record of past attacks against ESC contestants, and is not currently posing a threat to any other Eurovision participating country -> Israel did not get banned

There isn't a double standard, except for people who insist on not following the geopolitical logic. Same ones who didn't use Ukraine's retaliation activities against Russia as justification to get Ukraine banned, but are doing that to Israel, usually with a side dish of false, hyperbolic accusations that have nothing to do with reality.

Also...

The only flags allowed are of participating countries and the pride flag. The American flag is therefore banned. The Mexican flag. The Japanese, the Korean, the Nigerian flags. The world doesn't actually revolve around Palestinians, they're not actually the ultimate victims, and honestly, it's offensive they're cast that way when there are conflicts far worse and bloodier than the current war in Gaza, not to mention it takes away attention and help from them, to make everything constantly about the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, this is supposed to be the rule. Outside the performance hall, but within the borders of the Eurovision village, a visiting Israeli comedian called Guy Hochman was assaulted for walking around with the Israeli flag. Swedish police intervened, but they didn't act against the anti-Israel protesters who attacked and spat on Guy, they stopped him from openly carrying the Israeli flag. He asked why are they not allowing it, even though the flag is of a participating country, in accordance with the rules. He was told it's too dangerous. He then asked why are Palestinian flags not being removed, if they're banned according to contest rules, and was told that in Sweden, freedom of speech is above anything else. He was also grilled about whether he's Jewish by the Swedish policemen. Why was his flag denied, then? Why was his freedom of speech not protected, why was his Jewish identity a matter for questioning?

Another thing, the Swedish singer who ended up in third place in 2011 Eric Khaled Saade went on a childish rant crying over the Palestinian flag being banned (again, as if it's the only one), and as he was invited to perform this year, he got on stage live with a kaffiyeh tied to his left hand, even though he knew that was considered political, and therefore not allowed. Once more, he whined about it as if this is specifically against Palestinians, but you know what? The dress designers wanted to have a Star of David on the dress of the Israeli singer. She's a Jewish woman, that's a Jewish symbol, so why not represent her identity? But they were told that's "political." And you know what the Israeli delegation did? Followed the rules. You won't see the Star of David on Eden's dress. When they were told not to wear the hostage pin, because that's "political"? They followed the rules. When the Israeli song writers were told that their song, expressing Israeli pain, is "too political," what did they do? Followed the rules, they changed the lyrics. And you don't hear them crying about it all over social media and the news.

Not to mention, Eric Saade had no problem kissing the ass of Israeli fans back in 2011, when he competed and needed their votes. Was his dad less Palestinian back then? By the way, Israeli fans didn't hold his identity against him, they didn't demand he be questioned about Palestinian terrorists, or what his stance is on Hamas, they didn't drag politics into it, they focused on music and culture connecting people across borders and identities (as the ESC is supposed to do), and Israel gave its 12 points in both the semi and the final to Eric Saade that year. How did he repay those fans? Campaigning to ban Israel (and therefore them) from the contest, because he's incapable of seeing them as people first, and political rivals second, or maybe even (God forbid!) not at all...

It all smells like hypocrisy to me. But we all know this post won't get anywhere near the exposure (through likes and reblogs) that the lying, self-centered, hypocritical anti-Israel posts do. Doesn't matter. I'll still be here, speaking the truth.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[sscarletvenus]

armed resistance against your colonizers was, is, and will always be rightful, necessary and morally correct... glory to the resistance!

[inwhichifangirled]

macklemore finally broke the silence in the music industry on the genocide in Palestine. He's the first mainstream celebrity to speak up and he has the power to force every celebrity at the Met Gala that was wearing enough money to evacuate dozens of families in Rafah ON THE SAME NIGHT THAT RAFAH WAS BEING BOBMED to think about how tone deaf and ignorant they are.

Stream Hind's Hall on every Zionist platform you can find (I'm looking at youtube which is trying to censor the song) to take money away from Zionist companies and have the proceeds donated to Palestine relief

And he's right, "I want a ceasefire, fuck a response from Drake"

[scorpion-flower]

Greece's singer preteded to fall asleep.

Netherlands' singer covered himself with his coutry's flag.

Ireland's singer wrote "Ceasefire now" in old irish.

Latvia's singer said that every country deserves to be free.

I know it's not much, but I still love those subtle hints of diss agaist Israel 😂

[taviamoth]

Updates from @letstalkpalestine:

-

Day 169

‼️ Eyewitness Jamila al-Hisi who escaped besieged Shifa Hospital recounts Israeli soldiers raping, torturing and executing women in the hospital (see video 👇 for details). Israel also executed Dr. Muhammad al-Nono when he refused to abandon his patients

•⁠ 72 Palestinians killed, 114 injured in Gaza in past 24 hours

🏥 5 patients in Shifa killed in ongoing 6-day siege, without water, food & healthcare. Israeli forces used Palestinians as human shields, forcing them to form barriers behind soldiers & military vehicles. Also set fire to homes near Shifa with people inside

•⁠ ⁠Israel massacred 19 aid seekers in north Gaza

•⁠ Israel blocks 2nd UNRWA aid convoy to north Gaza this week. Only 35 aid trucks let into Gaza yesterday

•⁠ ⁠Hamas: Israeli hostage died from “lack of medicine & food” as Israel maintains aid blockade & delays hostage swap

🇺🇸⁠ Biden signs bill into law, cutting funding to UNRWA until March 2025 + to UN Commission of Inquiry which investigates war crimes in Palestine

[gryficowa]

And if you want to watch performances, I recommend bootleg recordings from Broadway, even in the quality of old YouTube videos, they will give you better fun than Eurovision in HD

Well, sorry, but there are many more interesting options that do not involve supporting Israel

[yesterdayiwrote]

So... quick update on the Eurovision situation

The EBU decided that Israel can compete despite their country being under an active Genocide investigation by the ICJ. Their delegation have gone on to antagonise other contestants by filming them for their social media without permission and refusing to remove it when asked, harass journalists who have questioned if their inclusion is appropriate, and their commentators have made horrendous comments about the Irish contestant... all without sanction.

Meanwhile the Dutch contestant got into an undisclosed 'incident' with a female member of the production crew and they've referred it to the police and flat out disqualified him from the contest with less than 12 hours notice...

Which seems like a tremendous act of double standards at an event that is already marred by serious controversy. Obviously the second is not acceptable, but very difficult to understand how the first somehow... is?

[norsesuggestions]

That is not how eurovision popularity works....

Listening to a usa based podcast talking about eurovision and the host was like:

"It is lucky usa do not compete in eurovision because with our pop - culture dominance we would win everytime"

Oh honey..... that is NOT how getting high scores in eurovision works. You would share last place with UK, every single time. LITERALLY

[belle-keys]

I cannot think of a single valid reason why Israel should even be allowed to participate in Eurovision in any year much less this year...

[nando161mando]

"Gaza under attack, boycott McDonald's" (EN: English)

[lockree]

let's gooooooooo

[matan4il]

Ahead of Eurovision 2024

I was listening to Eden Golan's song, Hurricane.

At first, it didn't seem to me like it stands out. I'm one of the people who prefers my Eurovision song less on the power ballad side of things, so this being in that genre...

But then I found myself haunted by the lyrics. By specific lines. Singing them to myself quietly, over and over again. I had to listen to the song again.

And it got to me, it really did, I haven't stopped listening to or singing it since, so I guess I needed to share a bit.

There's more than one hint that this is a song about mourning and survival. Lines like, "someone stole the moon tonight, took my light" can be interpreted in more than one way. But they become less ambiguous when combined with ones like, "holding on in this mysterious ride," when the mysterious ride we're all on is life itself. It makes it clearer that this isn't just a break up song. Then it becomes even more explicit with, "we shall pass, but love will never die."

The imagery in the videoclip is also telling, that ending when Eden is looking up, much like many do when talking to or thinking about a loved one that we have lost.

But the line that gets to me the most, the first one that took over my brain? "I'm still broken from this hurricane."

We all get what this song is about, in the wake of what happened here in October 2023, and since. And I am broken. So many Jews and Israelis are. As one survivor said (his words have haunted me first, then I heard them echoed in this song): "We are broken, but strong." That's exactly what the song is about, deeply feeling the pain and the tragedy, the loss, this impossible to accept grief, and still trying to find a way to live with it, to survive not just the horrors of a massacre, but the trauma that follows it as well.

The other line that affects me the most is directly related to this, "baby, promise me you'll hold me again." Because I have spent the last 5 months watching the news, seeing the funerals, and hearing people breaking down, as they say a variation of this to their loved ones, who are gone. Asking for a promise that can't be made, or fulfilled, and knowing that it can't, even as the request is being uttered. I hear their voices breaking around their words, whenever I listen to or sing this line.

The videoclip is also infused with imagery that's related to the massacre of over 360 people at the Nova music festival (and the kidnapping of 40 more from that scene), which is in a way very apt for music lovers. The images show dancers in what looks a lot like a nature party, just like Nova, and since the massacre happened when the music festival was meant to reach its peak, a long night of music and dancing climaxing around sunrise, that's exactly what we see, a move from the "moon light" throughout most of the videoclip, to the "sunrise" at the end.

But in the case of this "sunrise," Eden can smile, she can find comfort, she can sing a few words in Hebrew that reflect hope, about that little light that's left even when the moon's been stolen.

She's bringing the song to a beautiful, emotional closure.

Obviously, it can't be ignored that this is a re-write. The original song (which was called October Rain) was disqualified as "political."

You can read the original lyrics here. They're almost identical. I heard an interview with the song writers, who said they weren't even told what got their song disqualified, so they had to guess what the Eurovision Broadcasting Union had in mind, when they called an expression of our pain, and our strength at the face of that, "political."

I admit, I find it very hard to accept this disqualification. It's not like there isn't precendent for countries at the Eurovision expressing pain (including the kind originating from political circumstances) through their songs.

If you take the wildly popular Ukraine 2007 entry, the singer was quite obviously singing "Russia goodbye," with allusions to Russian interference in Ukrainian elections while wearing outfits reminiscent of Soviet uniforms. And that wasn't called political, because "Russia goodbye" was changed into gibberish that still sounds like it (and in recent performances, it was blatantly sang like that).

If you take the much talked about Croatia 2023 entry, it was about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and also criticized Belarus' tyrant kissing Russia's tyrant's ass, by referencing the tractor that Lukashenko bought for Putin, while the band members played with military weapons and uniforms on stage. And that wasn't disqualified for being political.

If you take the Ukraine 2016 entry, that was explicitly singing about their pain over what the Russians did to the Tatar population in Crimea in 1944, with clear allusions to what Russians did when they invaded Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014. And that wasn't called "political" either.

Even this year, we have the entry from The Netherlands being political, with both the lyrics and videoclip referencing the borderless Europe (which IS a political issue, as Brexit, if nothing else, had made clear). I've seen people pointing out online that the song isn't political, because the whole borderless Europe thing is a metaphor for the singer's grief for his father/parents. I have no problem with that reading, but let's acknowledge that there could have been many metaphors for that, and he chose a political one.

So why is Jewish pain treated differently? Why is our pain labeled "political," when the metaphors for it in the songs aren't that, there are no specific political mentions of people or organizations in the song (unlike the Georgia 2009 entry, which slipped Putin's name into the song's title) in either version, when there are no political statements being made in the song, there's just expressing our pain, and trying to find a way to cope with it?

This WAS the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and expecting Jews not to write about it, not to sing about it, not to try to process it through art... Our pain is not political. It's human. When Ukraine won in 2022 with a song that wasn't originally political, but became one, as it was adopted by Ukrainians suffering from a war that they did not choose, but had to fight, singing it wherever they were displaced (I remember the winners, Kalush Orchestra, coming to Israel to sing it for and with Ukrainian refugees who found shelter here), I thought it was quite obvious, even for people who don't like politics at Eurovision, why the song won, and why everyone overlooked the fact that it was only partly based on its qualities as a Eurovision song. I don't expect Israel to win, I very much expect that, even as Israelis embrace this song about our pain during a war, that we didn't choose, but have to fight, and while hundreds of thousands of us are still displaced, we will get a lot of hatred, instead of understanding and sympathy. But I still have to speak up. I still have to point out that treating Israeli or Jewish pain differently is wrong.

(as a footnote, I wanna get ahead of the usual, "Why is Israel allowed to participate in Eurovision to begin with? It's not in Europe!" comments, while I haven't come across the same ritual for certain other Eurovision participants, like North African Morocco, just-as-Asian-as-Israel Lebanon, transcontinental {despite some of these countries only being considered European culturally, while geographically speaking, they're fully Asian} Georgia, Russia, Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the one that's a continent all on its own, Australia. They all have the right to participate, because they all belong to the European Broadcasting Union. Just like Israel)

[sscarletvenus]

Ilan Pappe is a preeminent author, historian and speaker who has written about the Nakba, the series of calculated horrors and atrocities on the basis of which the apartheid regime called israel was founded.

genocidal maniacs are persecuting anti-genocide intellectuals.

detaining and interrogating Jewish scholars is definitely not antisemitism...

madness!

[witchescollection]

"why are israel in esc if they arent in europe" they're part of the ebu, the broadcasting company which makes eurovision. last time i checked australia wasn't in europe either babes

"i can't believe they banned the palestinian flag this week!" they've been banned since 2016, alongside any other flag of a 'disputed territory', anything containing a political message, and any local or regional flags.

listen, i'm not saying don't boycott, but what i am saying is if you're gonna call people horrendous insults and tell them to kill themselves because they aren't, you better at least have your fucking facts straight <3