There’s a compelling explanation as to why Israel soared above the din of geopolitical protest to power into second place at last night’s Eurovision Song Contest. In short, it was a bloody good song.
Amid the habitual smorgasbord of dad dancing, gothic frightwigs and dud vocals – Moldova and Norway’s entries threatened tinnitus, and let’s not even plough the embarrassing depths of the UK’s ghastly contribution – Noam Bettan, Israel’s representative, was a colossus.
At the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, the 28-year-old singer delivered a sweeping performance of his trilingual entry ‘Michelle’, reminding audiences that, in a festival of kitsch and musical dross, the contest can occasionally throw up a genuine belter.
In a festival of kitsch and musical dross, the contest can occasionally throw up a genuine belter.
But given the voluble determination across the world to demonise Israel, as well as the poisonous march of anti-Semitism, last night’s result was also profoundly revealing – especially when viewed through the lens of one of the most controversial and incendiary contests in Eurovision’s 70-year history.
After all, this was a year in which hostility towards Israel’s long association with the competition reached unprecedented heights.
Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia decided, with great flourish, to withdraw from the contest over the Jewish state’s participation – or, as Graham Norton unnecessarily observed, its ‘continued participation’. As though there should be an ongoing inquiry into Israel’s right to be there at all.
The actions of this lamentable bunch of countries were, of course, a morally bankrupt posture, given Israel’s military offensive in Gaza was a war the country did not seek and was triggered by the genocidal horrors of Hamas’s 7 October massacre. But when five nations holler in, albeit fatuous, protest, such gestures could well have influenced the millions casting their votes last night.
Especially when other Eurovision players also conspired to boilerplate themselves to such gesture politics, including Swiss singer Nemo, winner of the 2024 contest, who gave their trophy back to the European Broadcasting Union in protest at the organisation’s decision to allow Israel to continue competing.
Yet it didn’t land.
There was, admittedly, a sour whiff of prejudice in the scoring of some of the national juries last night – not least the UK, which awarded Israel nil points before crashing, with exquisite irony, into last place itself. But all of this was subsumed by the tele-vote, which propelled Israel dramatically up the leaderboard to finish second overall.
So what affected the public mood? Was it because viewers had no truck with craven prejudice towards Israel? Was it a quiet rebellion against the hate marches, the anti-Semitism, the stabbings and arson attacks against Jews, or the rise of jihadist rhetoric on our streets? Was it a refusal to buy the baseless claims against Israel? Or was it simply that people liked what they heard and would not be hectored by the likes of Spain or Ireland into voting differently? After all, some viewers will have had little interest in Middle Eastern politics and no appetite for importing it into a Saturday-night song contest.
Perhaps all of those explanations are true to varying degrees. But whatever the motive, the result made one thing abundantly clear: the attempt to frame Israel as a global pariah failed to resonate. Instead, ordinary decent people – not the extremists screaming ‘globalise the intifada’ through city centres – cast their vote and lifted the spirits of those of us who have despaired at the Jew hatred and criticism of Israel that goes far beyond proportionate critique.
Inevitably, as there was last year, there will now be mutterings about a so-called Israeli conspiracy – aka a ‘Jewish vote’. In 2025 Israel topped the public vote despite getting only 60 points from the national juries.
Does such a thing exist? Only in the same sense that Eurovision has always featured tactical or bloc voting – an issue Terry Wogan used to chuckle resignedly over as Greece and Cyprus exchanged their annual courtesies. Voting patterns have long reflected affinities, diaspora loyalties and cultural ties as much as politics.
Besides, Israel has an impressive Eurovision pedigree, having won the contest four times – in far less turbulent circumstances – by consistently fielding strong entries. So this year’s result was hardly just an anti-protest protest vote, given the sheer calibre of Bettan’s performance.
Whatever drove Israel’s 2026 success, it should stand above all as a reminder that, however desperately some activists may wish otherwise, cultural events cannot be hijacked as a referendum on foreign policy – especially in the case of Israel. And there is something undeniably heartening in that.
So a deserved ‘mazel tov’ to Noam Bettan and to Israel. May you be noisy in your victory. And to Spain, Slovenia, Ireland and the rest, all you have achieved is pointless, pitiful silence.
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