{"id":488586,"date":"2026-05-17T02:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/488586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T02:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T02:19:12","slug":"am-israel-chai-on-the-eurovision-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/488586\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Am Israel chai!&#8217; on the Eurovision stage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" album=\"true\" data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">The Eurovision 2026 final is being broadcast from Vienna, Austria, as Israel\u2019s representative, Noam Bettan, swept the audience away, with cheers heard from the moment he took the stage<a href=\"https:\/\/www.israelnationalnews.com\/news\/427160\" target=\"_blank\" data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> despite boos.<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">Bettan concluded his performance of \u201cMichelle&#8221; by thanking Europe and declaring, \u201cAm Israel chai! (The people of Israel live on!)&#8221; During the performance, a Palestinian Authority flag was raised near members of the Israeli delegation.<\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">Immediately after the performance, Bettan went live on his Instagram account.<\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">\u201cI want to say thank you to everyone for your love and your support of me, it is so important to me. We need you to vote 3. Vote for Israel, vote for Michelle, I love you all,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">Earlier on Saturday, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated in Vienna against Israel\u2019s participation in Eurovision. Following the protest, security officials barred some members of the Israeli delegation from leaving the arena complex.<\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar wished Noam Bettan success, saying, \u201cThe entire people of Israel are behind you, Noam! On behalf of the citizens of Israel, we are keeping our fingers crossed for your performance tonight on the Eurovision stage before the entire world. An entire country is strengthening and encouraging you. Good luck, Noam!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-753a4075=\"\" data-v-45890e8d-s=\"\">Spain\u2019s public broadcaster aired a black screen at 9:00 p.m. local time, the start of Eurovision, with a protest message as part of Spain\u2019s abstention from the competition: \u201cEurovision may be a competition, but human rights are not. There is no room for indifference. Peace and justice for Palestine.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eurovision 2026 final is being broadcast from Vienna, Austria, as Israel\u2019s representative, Noam Bettan, swept the audience&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[6929,18,117,10893,35120,19,17,156172,60556,128],"class_list":["post-488586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-austria","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-eurovision","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-noam-bettan","tag-singers","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116587527265926951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488586","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=488586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}