For weeks, the world of the Eurovision Song Contest has convulsed with debate over whether Israel should take part in next year’s competition given the growing humanitarian crisis amid its military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Broadcasters from countries including Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands have said in recent weeks that they will withdraw if Israel takes part.
Other countries including next year’s host nation, Austria, have pleaded with them not to take such drastic action.
Behind the scenes, Eurovision organizers have been buying time, hoping to conjure up a non-divisive solution.
Now, a decision is set to be made.
On Thursday, the board of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the high-camp event, said in an email that it would host an extraordinary general meeting in early November at which member broadcasters will vote on Israeli participation.
A Eurovision spokesman gave no further details.
In a letter to members, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, the union’s president, said the organization had “never faced a divisive situation like this before.”
First held in 1956, Eurovision has long billed itself as an apolitical event that shows that nations can put aside political differences for one evening and unite in song. But in the two years since the war in Gaza broke out after the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the presence of Israel at Eurovision has often overshadowed the event.
Singers have demanded Israel’s exclusion, and demonstrators have staged protests. Eurovision fans also criticized the 2024 song submitted by Israel’s broadcaster as being veiled commentary on the war in Gaza. The contest’s organizers said that the lyrics had to be changed.
At this year’s final in Basel, Switzerland, Israel came second after its act, Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas attack, secured the largest public vote. It was only in the show’s final moments that Austria’s contestant leaped ahead.
Shortly after the event, some countries complained that Israel’s government had tried to manipulate the vote, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and official Israeli social media accounts urging voting, and the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, which operates under the prime minister’s office, buying YouTube ads to encourage voting.
In July, the European Broadcasting Union’s members discussed Israeli participation at a meeting, but made no decision. Instead, the organization commissioned an expert to collect members’ views for discussion at its general assembly in December.
Yet in recent weeks, pressure to act has grown. On Sept. 11, RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster said in a statement that it would “not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if the participation of Israel goes ahead.”
Ireland has won Eurovision seven times and, along with Sweden, is the competition’s most successful nation.
“RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza,” the statement said, adding that the broadcaster was also “deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, and the denial of access to international journalists to the territory, and the plight of the remaining hostages.”
Around the same time, the Dutch national broadcaster also said it would withdraw if Israel took part, as did RTVE in Spain.
José Pablo López, the president of RTVE, told the broadcaster in an interview that it was inaccurate for Eurovision’s organizers to ever argue that the event was apolitical. “We are all aware that the contest carries significant political implications,” he said. “The Israeli government is equally aware of this fact and leverages the event on the international stage.”
“We consider it essential to speak out against what is happening in Gaza and to take a visible, meaningful stand,” he said.
KAN, Israel’s public broadcaster, said that the country should be allowed to take part.
“The potential disqualification of Israel’s public broadcaster KAN — one of the contest’s longstanding, popular and successful participants — would be especially troubling ahead of the 70th edition of the song contest, which was founded as a symbol of unity, solidarity and fellowship,” a KAN spokesman said in a statement. “Any such move could have wide-ranging implications for the competition and the values for which the E.B.U. stands.”
Lawmakers are now weighing in, too. This month, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Austria’s foreign minister, wrote to colleagues in six nations weighing a boycott, asking them to reconsider.
“I firmly believe that the Eurovision Song Contest in particular — and the arts in general — are not the appropriate arenas for sanctions,” she said. “Excluding Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest or boycotting the event would neither ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza nor contribute to finding a sustainable political solution.”
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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