{"id":478844,"date":"2026-05-11T08:14:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478844\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T08:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T08:14:28","slug":"ebu-called-out-by-eurovision-fans-for-unfairly-targeting-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478844\/","title":{"rendered":"EBU called out by Eurovision fans for unfairly targeting Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A grassroots campaign has started among Eurovision<\/a> fans around the world who feel that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has been treating the Israeli delegation unfairly following a warning issued by the competition\u2019s managing director to KAN, Israel\u2019s public broadcaster, over the weekend.<\/p>\n

The campaign started just ahead of the opening of the 70th edition of the song contest on the evening of May 12.<\/p>\n

In light of new rules adopted by the EBU<\/a> against campaigns urging Eurovision Song Contest voters to cast ballots for particular artists, Martin Green, the managing director of Eurovision, confirmed on Saturday that he had issued a formal warning to KAN over an advertising campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eurovoix News reported that advertisements in 13 languages had been released, featuring Noam Bettan<\/a>, the Israeli representative, calling on voters to use all 10 of their votes for Israel. These ads included specific instructions on how to cast votes.<\/p>\n

Green said in a statement: \u201cOn Friday, 8 May, it was brought to our attention that videos with an on-screen instruction to ‘vote 10 times for Israel’ had been published and released by the artist representing KAN. Within 20 minutes, we had contacted the KAN delegation to ask them to immediately stop any distribution of the videos and remove them from any platforms where they had been published. They immediately acted to do this.<\/p>\n

\"NoamNoam Bettan is Israel’s Eurovision contestant. (credit: Shai Franco\/Courtesy of EBU)<\/p>\n

“The Voting Instructions of the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> that cover promotion are predominantly directed at discouraging large-scale funded third-party campaigns, and we are satisfied that this video did not form part of such a campaign. However, employing a direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition\u2026<\/p>\n

“Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to KAN and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eurovision fans respond to Green<\/strong><\/p>\n

In response, some Eurovision fans in WhatsApp chat groups began circulating a message in several languages to be emailed to Green. It reads, in part:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am writing to express my profound disappointment and to lodge a formal complaint regarding the EBU’s recent demand that the Israeli delegation remove its promotional campaign for Noam Bettan\u2019s song \u2018Michelle,\u2019 as well as the subsequent formal warning issued to KAN. This drastic action is highly disproportionate, entirely unjustified, and strongly appears to be a case of targeted harassment against the Israeli team to appease external political pressure.<\/p>\n

“As you have publicly acknowledged yourself, the promotional materials produced by the Israeli delegation did **not** violate the strict new regulations regarding third-party or government funding. It was a standard, self-contained campaign by the artist and the broadcaster.”<\/p>\n

The message goes on to say: \u201cYour justification for forcing the removal of these videos – that stating \u2018vote 10 times\u2019 violates the \u2018spirit of the competition\u2019 – is arbitrary and absurd. The EBU\u2019s own voting regulations officially allow viewers to cast up to 10 votes per user.<\/p>\n

“Penalizing an artist for simply educating fans about the official mechanics of your own voting system is entirely unreasonable. There is no rule stating that an artist cannot encourage maximum support from their fan base.\u201d<\/p>\n

It \u00a0cites examples of other countries that \u00a0are running similar campaigns but have not been rebuked, calling this a \u201cglaring double standard.\u201d Among the examples the text cites are promotional campaigns currently being run by Malta and Poland.<\/p>\n

The letter concludes, \u201cThe EBU claims to champion a non-political event built on fairness and unity. Yet, forcing Noam Bettan and the Israeli delegation to walk on eggshells while turning a blind eye to identical or more extensive practices by other nations proves the exact opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yifat Gat, an Israeli-born artist living in France for years, said that she knew many people who were sending the message to the EBU in English and French.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a growing frustration among Eurovision fans who simply want to enjoy the show,” she said. “It feels like BDS [the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement] has hijacked the event, bullying people into applying double standards against Israel\u2026 No one likes it.\u201d This message of protest is \u201cjust a way of saying, \u2018Enough is enough\u2019 – let the fans enjoy the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no way to know exactly how many people have sent this message to the EBU, but it is a sign of the times in a year when five countries, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain, are boycotting the contest because of Israel’s continued participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grassroots campaign has started among Eurovision fans around the world who feel that the European Broadcasting Union…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[97211,209706,35956,18,117,43538,10893,19,17,71,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-478844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-antizionism","10":"tag-boycott","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-european-broadcasting-union","14":"tag-eurovision","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116554948305726239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478844","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=478844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}