Its organizers Eurovision today rejected the idea of ​​excluding Israel from the song contest – unlike what they had done for Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

After the war in Gaza, sparked by the unprecedented extent Hamas attack on October 7have been heard from several countries voices in favor of exclusion of Israel from the competition.

Noel Keren, director general of the European Broadcasting Union, said that the EBU is “aware” of the voices in favor of this year’s exclusion Israel from the competition, in which the country will be represented in May by the performer Eden Golanwith a yet-to-be-announced song.

“However, the Eurovision Song Contest is one non-political music event and a competition between public broadcasters, members of the EBU. This is not a competition between governments,” Keren said.

“Comparisons between wars and conflicts are complex and difficult and as a non-political media organization, it’s not up to us to do them,” he told AFP.

“Israel meets all the rules of the competition”

In the case of Israel, according to him, “our governing bodies … concluded that the Israeli public broadcaster Kan he met all the rules of the competition for this year and that he could participate as in the last 50 years”.

On the contrary, Keren reported “in the case of Russia, the participation of the Russian broadcaster had been suspended by the EBU due to the systematic failure to meet its obligations as a member and of violating the values ​​of public services”.

He also emphasized that the relationship between the public body Kan and the Israeli government is “fundamentally different” from the one between Russian TV and Moscow, noting that the Israeli government has “threatened in recent years to shut down the broadcaster”.

Polynikis Israel in Competition

Israel won the competition four times and has hosted the competition in Jerusalem twice in 1979 and 1999.

Israel hosted the competition for the third time in Tel Aviv in 2019when he got zero points from the committees

Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta won in Paris the 1978 with the uptempo”A-Ba-Ni-Bi“.

Back home in Jerusalem the following year, Israel won again, this time with the anthemic “Hallelujah” performed by Gali Atari and Milk and Honey.

Unusually, Israel did not defend the title in 1980.

The third victory came some 20 years later in Birmingham 1998when singer Dana International won top honors with the song Divastarting widespread festivities in Israel.

It took another 20 years of waiting for Israel to record their fourth victory in their competition 2018 in Lisbon, with the song “Toy” by Neta, earning Israel its highest score ever with 529 points.