That would homestly be nice. It's not about Eurovision, but about sending a message. If Russia gets banned from many activities for invading a sovereign country, Israel should get the same treatment for doing what is (at best) the same.
Do you think that Russia would have been banned if Ukraine started the invasion by massacring hundreds of innocent civilians at a rave party in Russia, and took random tourists back home to Ukraine to rape them, and then spread videos of it all?
Now, Israel is all but innocent. But it is not 1:1 comparable
Indeed it’s not a 1 to 1 comparison. One country is ordered by the ICJ to stop committing a potential genocide, and the other isn’t.
Edit: added the word ‘potential’ to more accurately represent the ICJ ruling.
It has been ordered to PREVENT a hypothetical genocie, not to stop "committing a genocide".
Israel has done enough bad shit that you don't need to lie to prove your point
Who is committing the hypothetical genocide?
Russia started a war of aggression so it makes sense they are banned from Eurovision till that has been resolved.
Israel is committing war crimes on a scale that is rare in modern history, so also a good reason to be banned.
And bringing up the oktober 7 attacks kinda sounds hollow after the response from Israel. Hammas killed 1.139 and Israel killed well over 25.000.
Hamas committed a direct attack on civilians, without any military target in mind what-so-ever. Obviously this will be a serious crime against humanity in most people's eyes that makes it harder to count Israel's response as unwarranted, counting in their wrongdoings.
With the Rus-Ukr conflict, the same country is both the aggressor and the attacker that started the invasion. That makes it easier to see who the undoubtedly "bad guy" is.
Hamas is the aggressor in this specific part of the almost 100 year old conflict, that resulted in the current circumstances.
What genocide are you referring to?
None in particular, I’m saying there is no excuse for genocide. So to determine if Israel is committing one, the actions of Hamas are irrelevant.
Well, if you cut it like that, you could cut it a month later. Now Israel is the aggressor!
It's not that simple.
hamas are terrorists. all terrorism is a crime against humanity. but what israel is doing is also a crime against humanity. even the settlements could be considered such a thing. and i'm not even going to talk about the fact that palestinian refugees don't have a right of return to their land, that opens a new definition of crime done by a state.
israel must be isolated, banning them from eurovision is a must for the organization. uefa and fifa should ban them as well from international competitions. but this isolation is already late and the current actions of israel reflect the inaction of the international community towards their many habitual crimes against palestinians.
Hamas committed a direct attack on civilians, without any military target in mind what-so-ever.
About 1/4th of the Israelis deaths on October 7th were members of the military. The IDF by it's own reports has killed two civilians for every Hamas member, so 1/3rd of the deaths are military. They have killed at least 10k civilians in one month, so just a bit more than Russia did in the whole war but 10 times as much as Hamas managed! With those numbers let's keep in mind that Hamas are terrorists while the IDF is an organised army of a democratic state which claims to uphold human rights even in war times.
So yeah, neither side gets a medal from me for holding back against civilians.
You think this started on October 7th? What about the years beforehand of deaths? Do you need someone to bring out the chart again comparing civilian deaths for the last few decades?
Another difference is that Russia attacked another Eurovision country. I don't know why Israel is even in Eurovision, but Palestine definitely isn't.
Not trying to start a thing but I don't remember the part of the Russia/Ukraine conflict where a faction of Ukrainian militants committed horrible atrocities against Russian civilians just trying to enjoy life.
The Israel/Russia comparison seems iffy at best...
Yes, I took out the really ignorant thing I said - I apologize for my prior retracted statement.
Funny you should mention that... Did you know that Israel has, on average, killed an equivalent of 9/11 every 10.6 days since October 7th, of which half are children?
Oh, and in terms of numbers, "as bad or worse than 9/11"... if you go by the numbers, it's 766 civilians killed on October 7th vs 2600-3000 on 9/11. So, you're not only off by a factor of 4 there, but you seem clueless how your analogy would look when describing Israels ongoing genocide.
Also, why not just use October 7th as a unit of reference. Israel has done an "October 7th", on average, since then, every 3.2 days. And it's still not a fair comparison, as it's 50% children vs 5%.
Comparing Russia to Israel's scale of war crimes is seriously cutting Israel some undeserved slack, even though it'd be a dumb contest of being the least shitty turd stain on humanity.
if you go by the numbers, it’s 766 civilians killed on October 7th vs 2600-3000 on 9/11
In a country that is 36 times smaller than the US. Look at what 9/11 caused psychologically on a societal level in the US, and how it affected the political decisions in the decade after (sadly).
In the end, Hamas did start the current war, and bears the main responsibility for the civilian deaths on both sides during it. At the same time, I loathe the current Israeli government, and do think that there have been war crimes committed in Gaza by the IDF, that need to be investigated. The thing is, the Israeli government can and will be replaced in the next election. The same is not possible for Hamas, who are just as detrimental to a two state solution.
Most people commenting in this thread seem to have it all figured out and have very clear opinions for a conflict that simply is not that easy to solve.
In the end, Hamas did start the current war, and bears the main responsibility for the civilian deaths on both sides during it.
That's... what do you mean by "current war"? The rest of that take is arguably not as clear cut as you think it is. Hamas bears the responsibility for killing 766 civilians. Israel bears the responsibility for killing 30 000 civilians. If you start counting on October 7th, that is. The way you are wording it seems veeeery apologetic of genocide. That it's somehow not the responsibility of those perpetrating it, but instead those who (in your opinion) threw the first rock?
You're right. It's worse than Russia Ukraine. More than 6 times as many civilians have died in Gaza. It's an active genocide.
Still wouldn't justify an invasion, full stop, let alone one purposefully targeting civilians who have nothing to do with it.
Might as well ban Germany alongside too. Our government claimed that the case brought forth by South Africa was "without any basis" the moment the hearing at the ICJ ended. Now that the ICJ has demanded preliminary measures and explicitly stated that the Palestinians are at a plausible risk of genocide, the government tried to spin-doctor it, that "without any basis" would be a normal way of communicating different opinions on a legal case. Oh and on the day of the hearing the German genocide against the Herero and Nama people in todays Namibia had it's 120 years anniversary. The German government did not deem it necessary to adress the fact in any formal way to Namibia or anyone else.
Except for 2018 the last decade was a total embarassement anyways and the spot should be taken by a country whose artists actually make it by ability instead of the spot being paid for.
It is so typical of German governments to pretend that Germany is the worst in the world and to make up for it ends up helping facists. That was basically what happened with Russia with NordStream. It is also very much what seems to happen with Israel today. Obviously the creation of Israel was in a large part Germanys fault due to the Holocaust and Germany has a moral obligation to make up for it. However that should mean no more genocides and not do everything for Israel, including supporting a government, which openly calls for genocide in parts.
I know it's not really about Eurovision, but honestly who cares about Eurovision
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
But seriously, it’s the gay musical Olympics, what’s not to love? (Unless you’re from Germany/UK in which it’s a point of national pride to dismiss Eurovision, lol?)
Only because Germany/UK is dismissed by Eurovision. Sam Ryder was robbed 2022
And no way did Lord of the Lost deserve last place 2023. UK might have.
No, Germany loves to watch Eurovision, we don't care, that our own country sucks all the time. By now it's more of a meme and people are betting, how bad it's gonna be this year.
I'm British and we're obsessed with Eurovision, we also enjoy losing.
The entire country of sweden
Not even close.
I don’t care about it, but 162 million people watched it last year 🤷
For fellow Americans.... That's almost 50% more than the Super Bowl (113 million in 2023).
My girlfriend goes absolutely nuts for it. We tune into the national selections.
The songs are usually pretty good and it's cute AF to see her getting worked up.
Very good, we need more of that. Countries which openly and actively do genocide should at least feel that the world thinks it's not OK.
Simply removing them on the grounds of not being European should be easy enough and have happened as soon as they were let it. Same with Australia.
So you also want to kick out all the Arab states because they're "not European"? The EBU has always included the whole Mediterranean. It has Arab founding members.
Based. Fuck israel
I'm American so I have never followed Eurovision. I always assumed it was European only. Are there many none European countries that participate? The USA doesn't right?
Israel and Australia participate.
Israel has been since 1973 because their national broadcaster is part of the European Broadcasting Union.
Australia has had a huge cult following and was initially only allowed to join for a one-off year in 2015, but because of the success they've been allowed to take part every year since.
Au has a lot of immigrants from the EU - but also our international TV station SBS is part of the EU broadcast union
The whole Mediterranean is part of the EBU, at least Lebanon and Morocco are even founding members -- the list isn't easy to read because it lists when a broadcaster joined, not when the country first joined with any broadcaster.
The Arab nations boycott the ESC though because Israel participates. So, please, if you suspend Israel do it early enough so that those states have an opportunity to do a national selection.
The Eurovision Song Contest is organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) an organization set up to regulate TV tech. In short they exist to make sure a TV bought in Spain also works in Sweden. As such the EBU also grants full membership to countries that are not part of Europe but have strong economic ties with the continent and therefore are part of the European Broadcasting Area. That's how we got Israel in the contest. Australia also competes because (a) they are an associate member (b) they have an long history of airing the contest even before they competed (c) they spend a large sum of money every year to make the EBU forget where exactly Australia is located.
The US doesn't participate but a couple of years ago NBC bought the rights and tried to mount an "American Song Contest". It didn't work all that well because it was hamstrung by the rigid structure of American network TV. The ESC works (in part) because it is three nights only and they tried to make an entire season of television.
Australia is in the contest. Do what you want with that info.
Everyone should turn up but only sing songs about how Israel are a bunch of cunts.
That’s a lot of Swedish music stars who will not be allowed entry into the US, UK or Germany, where their statements are classified as antisemitism under the IHRA definition. They can still tour Cuba and Venezuela, though.
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee