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Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title \u201cNew Day Will Rise\u201d on stage at the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in the Arena St. Jakobshalle. Photo: Jens B\u00fcttner\/dpa via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
Spanish Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun has joined Slovenia\u2019s national broadcaster in threatening to withdraw their country\u2019s participation in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) if Israel is not banned because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.<\/p>\n
Urtasun appeared\u00a0Monday morning on the Spanish news show \u201cLa hora de La 1 on TVE\u201d and reminded viewers that in May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez called on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the ESC, to ban Israel from the international competition. Urtasun said on Monday that if Israel participated in the ESC \u201cand we fail to expel it, measures will have to be taken,\u201d as cited by the Spanish daily newspaper La Vanguardia.<\/a> He said he believes Israel\u2019s participation in the contest cannot be normalized and tolerated.<\/p>\n Urtasun, who is also a spokesperson for Spain\u2019s left-wing alliance Sumar, additionally denied that it is antisemitic to denounce the so-called \u201cgenocide\u201d taking place in Gaza and described Israel as a \u201cgenocidal government.\u201d He also said he feels pride over Israel\u2019s decision to ban<\/a> Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda D\u00edaz and Minister of Childhood and Youth Sira Rego from entering the Jewish state because of their antisemitic statements and criticism of Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar announced<\/a> the sanctions early Monday against the Spanish politicians because of their \u201canti-Israel and antisemitic\u201d comments and \u201csupport for terrorism and violence against Israelis.\u201d Spain has condemned the move in a released statement.<\/a> Sanchez is a longtime critic of Israel<\/a>, and last year called for Israel to be excluded from all international cultural events, including the Eurovision, because of its military campaign targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza.<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s national broadcaster RTVE will ultimately make the final decision regarding Spain\u2019s withdrawal from the ESC.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the director of Slovenia\u2019s national broadcaster, RTVSLO, has announced that it will likely withdraw from the contest next year if Israel participates. Ksenija Horvat recently said that RTVE has reached out to EBU several times with concerns pertaining to Israel\u2019s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest and next year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n RTVSLO called for the expulsion of Israel from Eurovision 2025 and Horvat sent a letter to members of the EBU\u2019s executive board that RTVSLO shared online in May<\/a> about Israel\u2019s participation in next year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe sent some very specific questions and proposals, just like last year,\u201d Horvat said<\/a> recently. \u201cLast year we were more or less ignored. This year is basically the same. So, we realistically think that we will not be able to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. If we won\u2019t be able to reach an appropriate system of participation, we will not be there.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the winner of last year\u2019s Eurovision, Austrian singer JJ, has said that he wants Israel to be banned from the Eurovision next year. The 70th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in May 2026 at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.<\/p>\n The EBU recently extended its penalty-free withdrawal deadline for broadcasters to mid-December, not long after the EBU\u2019s General Assembly will convene and likely discuss Israel\u2019s participation in next year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n Ahead of last year\u2019s Eurovision, more than 70 former contestants,<\/a> as well as public broadcasters around the world,<\/a> called for the EBU to ban Israel from the competition. When the contest ended, and Israel finished in second place, Spain\u2019s RTVE demanded an audit of the voting system after Israel was a favorite in the popular vote. The director of the competition and EBU\u2019s executive supervisor of the ESC both denied accusations<\/a> that voting was rigged in any way in favor of Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title \u201cNew Day Will Rise\u201d on stage at the second semi-final of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-408695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}