{"id":475988,"date":"2026-05-09T06:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475988\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:48:12","slug":"eurovision-is-the-boycott-over-israel-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-song-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475988\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision: Is the boycott over Israel the beginning of the end for the song contest?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nThe competition born to bring post-war Europe together is in a state of fracture as five countries, including Ireland, boycott next week&#8217;s event. Fans and former winners weigh in on whether the show can go on\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\u2018Clear conflict\u2019: Nemo, who won Eurovision in 2024 for Switzerland, returned their trophy in December in protest at Israel\u2019s inclusion. Photo: Jens B\u00fcttner\/Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/82eaa100-b950-4e28-9ed7-c8305ed7ca11.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">\u2018Clear conflict\u2019: Nemo, who won Eurovision in 2024 for Switzerland, returned their trophy in December in protest at Israel\u2019s inclusion. Photo: Jens B\u00fcttner\/Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In 2016, 60 years after the first Eurovision took place in Lugano Switzerland, ABBA\u2019s Bj\u00f6rn Ulvaeus presented song contest bosses with the Charlemagne Prize highlighting its contribution to European unity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The contest was born in the aftermath of World War II \u2013 when Europe had been torn apart by bloodshed and terror. Eurovision\u2019s aim was to bring people together through musical culture. And for many years, it was successful in that idealistic goal. Today, the contest\u2019s official slogan is \u2018United by Music\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The competition born to bring post-war Europe together is in a state of fracture as five countries, including&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,10893,19,17,2119,2519,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-475988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-eurovision","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-kirsty-blake-knox","14":"tag-review-magazine","15":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116543285344716397","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475988","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=475988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}