Viewers swerving next week’s Eurovision Song Contest may still be interested to know that the bookies’ favourite is not Israel but Finland. The Israeli singer Noam Bettan currently has the sixth-best odds.
But, of course, by virtue of being in the competition, Israel can still win and then attempt to host Eurovision in Tel Aviv in 2027 – a sequence of events that would likely spur an expansion of this year’s boycott and be the final nail for the contest’s provably untrue slogan, “United by music”.
Clearly, most members of the European Broadcasting Union are either comfortable with this outcome or consider it a risk they’re willing to take.
Amid the controversy and outrage surrounding Israel’s continued Eurovision participation – and the decisions of Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland to pull out as a result – it’s easy to forget that the alliance of broadcasters behind the contest dodged an even worse outcome: Israel could have won in 2025. By topping the public vote, with the aid of “dix points” from Ireland, it very nearly did.
The final 20 minutes of last year’s grand final, in the Swiss city of Basle, was excruciating. After the votes of the 37 participating national juries were read out, Israel was in joint 14th place. The Eurovision hardcore, though not averse to backing Israeli songs to victory as recently as 2018, had not especially championed this one, and the juries agreed, with the Irish panel being one of just 14 to give Israel any points.
But it wasn’t out of contention. The public vote from each country is announced as a single, pooled number, which can lead to wild changes in fortune. In 2016, the year this factor was introduced, it delivered a real WTF moment, and the system remains a work of genius from a live-television perspective.
In 2025, however, such climactic drama inevitably acquired a sickening edge for viewers unable to square Israel’s actions in Gaza with the participation of Kan, the Israeli broadcaster, in an event with a heart-shaped logo.
Because it was so low down the leader board, Israel’s public total was revealed well before that of the jury leaders. A whopping 297 points from the public meant it leapfrogged its way to provisional first place, with a combined score of 357. There it stayed for ages. “Has Israel snuck a win?” Graham Norton wondered on the BBC.
Israeli singer Yuval Raphael during the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/Getty
Its entrant, Yuval Raphael, made it to the final split screen with the jury-vote leader, JJ of Austria, who was on 258 points and needed 100 points or more from the public to eclipse Raphael’s total. “This is quite tense,” Norton said. Over on RTÉ, Marty Whelan was sharing his anxiety with the audience. The Swiss host broadcaster milked the moment.
With a little maths, viewers at home could have worked out before the big reveal that Austria was home and dry. The number of points is finite, and they must all be allocated. Each participating country has 58 to distribute (the sum of 1-8, 10 and 12), while there is also a “rest of world” vote that counts as one country.
This meant that in 2025 the public vote had a total of 2,204 points (58 x 38) to distribute. Totting them up as they were awarded would have shown that 178 were left for Austria.
For the European Broadcasting Union, the moment of maximum nerve-jangling probably came earlier in the week, when Israel topped the vote in its semi-final and became an unexpectedly serious contender.
Many regard Eurovision’s move since then to tighten its rules as a response to Israel’s performance in the public vote in 2025. What the competition’s director, Martin Green, referred to as “a little fear that we’re seeing some undue promotion, particularly by third parties, perhaps governments” – he didn’t single out Israel – has prompted the contest to reduce the maximum number of votes fans can cast to 10, down from 20.
Juries will also return to the semi-finals, which the public alone has decided since the discovery of “irregular voting patterns” in the scores awarded by six juries – those of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino – in 2022.
The organisers have pledged to “strengthen monitoring of suspicious patterns” and banned campaigns by third parties, including governments and government agencies.
This apparent clampdown makes it harder for any one entity to engineer a triumph-snatching mass-voting exercise. But it obviously doesn’t make such a strategy impossible. If Israel and pro-Israel voters across Europe are determined to win this year, they can still do it – something that participating member countries of the European Broadcasting Union will have to live with if it comes to pass.
So, as RTÉ sits this one out, the 35 broadcaster delegations already in Vienna for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest will have found an organisation, and a city, on high alert. “Disunited by music” is more like it.