{"id":109193,"date":"2026-05-11T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/109193\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:07:14","slug":"new-york-times-eurovision-probe-fuels-anti-israel-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/109193\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times Eurovision probe fuels anti-Israel narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not unusual for the New York Times<\/a> to condemn Israel, but what\u2019s new is that the newspaper condemned Israel Monday over an issue it has previously expressed little interest in: Eurovision.<\/p>\n

In an article headlined \u201cHow Israel Turned Eurovision\u2019s Stage Into a Soft Power Tool,\u201d The New York Times excoriated Israel for promoting its Eurovision contestants over the last few years. \u201cA New York Times investigation found a well-organized campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government that embraced Eurovision as a soft power tool,\u201d the article states.<\/p>\n

Americans are famously indifferent to the Eurovision<\/a> Song Contest, so perhaps The New York Times reporters could not have been expected to know that every participating country uses its participation in Eurovision to promote its country\u2019s image abroad. All contestants participate in short videos separate from their performances, and while this may shock and outrage New York Times reporters, these videos show vibrant cityscapes, gorgeous scenery, and picturesque local traditions. They do not show slums or highlight issues and problems in each country. No Eurovision video that I can recall ever mentioned unemployment, poverty, or government corruption. So, it could reasonably be said that all participating countries have \u201cembraced Eurovision as a soft power tool\u201d since the song contest began in 1956.<\/p>\n

Eurovision has always been political and promotional<\/p>\n

While The New York Times article admits that there is no set limit for how much a government can spend promoting its representative to Eurovision, and writes that, \u201cThere is no evidence that Israel, as some Eurovision fans speculated, used bots or other covert tactics to manipulate the vote,\u201d the article nevertheless tries to find something amiss in Israel\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The New York Times seems to be responding to two instances in which Israel has been accused of breaking Eurovision rules and then exonerated. The first came last year, when Yuval Raphael won the televote for her performance of the song \u201cNew Day Will Rise\u201d<\/a> in the 2025 competition, finishing second overall. Looking for a way to square their animosity toward Israel with the love the audience showed Raphael, some European public broadcasters and Eurovision artists discovered that Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry had run ads promoting Raphael and zeroed in on this as the reason she won the televote. No one noted the irony in the fact that this is the first time in history that ads by Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry have been credited with having had worldwide influence, but let\u2019s just focus on the question at hand: whether these ads were a violation of Eurovision rules.<\/p>\n

According to Martin Green, Eurovision\u2019s managing director, they did not violate the rules. Back in May 2025, he made a strongly worded statement defending the integrity of the Eurovision voting system, which he called \u201cthe most advanced in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiwibloggs\u2019 Jordi Pedra wrote that the European Broadcasting Union\u2019s \u201cinvestigation notes that other countries also ran advertising campaigns, including Malta, Greece, Albania, Poland, Armenia, and France. Some of these were run by the artists themselves via their own social platforms, and some were promoted via the competing broadcaster in the territory.\u201d There was no outcry over these other promotional campaigns.<\/p>\n

Israel accused again despite compliance with rules<\/p>\n

This year, after five countries \u2013 Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain \u2013 chose to boycott Eurovision because the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the body that runs Eurovision, declined to vote on kicking Israel out of the contest, the EBU instituted some rule changes. These included explicitly stating that campaigns like the Foreign Ministry\u2019s were not allowed.<\/p>\n

So last week, when Eurovoix News reported that advertisements in 13 languages had been released, which featured Noam Bettan, the Israeli representative, calling for voters to use all 10 of their votes for Israel, accusations flew at Israel once again. These ads also included specific instructions on how to cast votes.<\/p>\n

Green said that Eurovision requested the immediate removal of the material from platforms such as X. While the Israeli Eurovision delegation complied quickly, the EBU issued a warning, with Green saying: \u201cOn Friday, 8,\u00a0 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. The Voting Instructions of the Eurovision Song Contest 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. 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

While other instances of similar promotional campaigns by countries, including Malta and Poland, surfaced later, these did not draw the same stern rebuke. And isn\u2019t having a glitzy extravaganza with a multi-million-dollar budget and a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions, and then trying to prevent promotional campaigns, a bit absurd?<\/p>\n

Another point that The New York Times article repeatedly mentions is the involvement of \u201cthe Netanyahu government,\u201d including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> himself and President Isaac Herzog, with Israel’s Eurovision delegation, as if this were unique. But it is not unusual for presidents and prime ministers from all countries to wish Eurovision contestants well and pose for photos with them. And while we\u2019re on the subject of politicians, didn\u2019t Spain\u2019s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez weigh in on Israel\u2019s participation in 2025? Is it all right for a politician to get involved in Eurovision, as long as he is criticizing Israel?<\/p>\n

Security threats against Israeli contestants intensified<\/p>\n

Israel, which has won Eurovision four times, has faced serious security threats in the contest since it began taking part in 1973, but in the years since the war with Hamas broke out, these threats have intensified. The threats against the Israeli delegation in Malmo in 2024 were deemed so dangerous that when Golan left her hotel room, she wore a disguise, as she was advised to by Israel\u2019s General Security Service (aka the Shin Bet), which oversaw the security arrangements.<\/p>\n

In 2025, when Raphael walked the turquoise carpet, the traditional opening of the song contest, a man got as close as he could to her and mimed slitting her throat. This year, the FBI has joined in to help the Austrian police handle the threats against the Israeli delegation. Israel may or may not spend more than other countries on promotion. The New York Times article does not document what each country spends, but surely it spends millions more on security than any other participating nation.<\/p>\n

Golan was booed so loudly during her performance that the following year, Raphael rehearsed to the noise of boos to prepare herself for them. Despite this vocal disapproval by some in the audience, both Golan and Raphael found favor with millions at home (Golan came in second in the televoting), and I suspect this is what drove the New York Times to publish such an unsubstantiated and hostile article, which suggests that if Israeli singers won over audiences, there had to be cheating going on.<\/p>\n

Channel 12\u2019s Europe correspondent, Elad Simchayoff, weighed in on X, writing: \u201cIsrael is hardly the only participating country that treats Eurovision as a PR opportunity. The piece itself admits no rules were broken, and the integrity of the vote wasn\u2019t compromised. Eurovision\u2019s voting system is built on voting for a country, not against one. Israel may be actively promoting itself, but per the NYT\u2019s own reporting, the audience is voting for Israel of its own free will. I can hardly see the scandal. That\u2019s how the contest works.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend in New York who admits he has little knowledge of Eurovision but who is a close observer of The New York Times quipped, \u201cIf Eurovision and the State of Israel had existed in 1900, Israel\u2019s Eurovision track record would have been mentioned in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not unusual for the New York Times to condemn Israel, but what\u2019s new is that the newspaper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[11122,26026,37,9109,15240],"class_list":{"0":"post-109193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-discrimination","9":"tag-eurovision","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-new-york-times","12":"tag-shin-bet"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116558459192274006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}