{"id":57222,"date":"2025-09-11T12:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57222\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T12:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:16:07","slug":"rte-says-it-will-withdraw-from-eurovision-if-israel-participates-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/57222\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 says it will withdraw from Eurovision if Israel participates \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a> has said it will pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> next year if Israel<\/a> participates.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Thursday, the broadcaster confirmed that it has reached a decision on the issue, which director general Kevin Bakhurst first raised with the European Broadcasting Union earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s participation in the annual song contest has been a source of criticism from pro-Palestinian activists in recent years as the assault on Gaza<\/a> begun after the October 7th attacks on Israel by Hamas have continued and intensified. <\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 is understood to be one of several European broadcasters that had been considering withdrawing from the contest.<\/p>\n

The European Broadcasting Union, which runs the competition, is engaged in a consultation process with its members on Israel\u2019s participation, with a decision due in November.<\/p>\n

But some countries are already making their positions clear. Broadcasters in Iceland and Slovenia have recently said they may not take part in the competition next year if Israel is involved.<\/p>\n

In its statement, RTE said: \u201cIt is RT\u00c9\u2019s position that Ireland will not take part in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if the participation of Israel goes ahead, and the final decision regarding Ireland\u2019s participation will be made once the EBU\u2019s decision is made.<\/p>\n

\u201cRT\u00c9 feels that Ireland\u2019s participation would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza. RT\u00c9 is also deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza, and the denial of access to international journalists to the territory, and the plight of the remaining hostages.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 has said it will pull out of the Eurovision Song Contest next year if Israel participates. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,10893,13,14,6,19,17,71,3857,11,12,15,16,5,1181,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-57222","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-israel","18":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-rte","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57222","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=57222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57222\/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=57222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}