{"id":215665,"date":"2025-12-04T20:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/215665\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:50:10","slug":"ireland-will-not-take-part-in-next-eurovision-song-contest-due-to-israels-inclusion-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/215665\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland will not take part in next Eurovision Song Contest due to Israel\u2019s inclusion \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland will not participate in next year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest<\/a>, and RT\u00c9<\/a> will not broadcast the event, after the organiser cleared the way for Israel<\/a> to partake.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday, RT\u00c9 said it would be \u201cunconscionable\u201d for Ireland to partake in the event given the \u201cappalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there\u201d.<\/p>\n

At an earlier meeting in Geneva on Thursday, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs the competition, decided no vote would be taken on Israel\u2019s inclusion in the 2026 event.<\/p>\n

Instead, participating broadcasters voted only to introduce new rules designed to stop governments and third parties from disproportionately promoting songs to influence voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cA large majority of members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision song contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,\u201d the EBU said in a statement.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 and some other European public broadcasters had committed earlier this year to pulling out of the contest if Israel was to be included. <\/p>\n

Following this, RT\u00c9 said its position \u201cremains unchanged\u201d and it will not participate in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, \u201cnor will RT\u00c9 broadcast the competition\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRT\u00c9 remains deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and the continued denial of access to international journalists to the territory,\u201d the broadcaster said.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s participation in the annual song contest has been a source of criticism from pro-Palestinian activists in recent years due to Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza<\/a> since the October 7th attacks by Hamas.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the EBU decision, public broadcasters in Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia confirmed they will be boycotting the event. <\/p>\n

The United Kingdom\u2019s BBC said it would broadcast next year\u2019s competition, saying it supports the collective decision made by members of the EBU. \u201cThis is about enforcing the rules of the EBU and being inclusive,\u201d it said. The German broadcaster SWR confirmed it would participate.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s president Isaac Herzog said he is pleased his country will once again partipate and hopes the contest will continue to champion culture, music and friendship between nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael deserves to be represented on every stage around the world, a cause to which I am fully and actively committed,\u201d he wrote in a post on X. <\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to all our friends who stood up for Israel\u2019s right to continue to contribute and compete at Eurovision. This decision demonstrates solidarity, fellowship, and cooperation, and reinforces the spirit of affinity between nations through culture and music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2014Additional reporting: Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland will not participate in next year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest, and RT\u00c9 will not broadcast the event, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,10893,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,1181,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-215665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-eurovision","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-rte","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115663276522514873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}