JULIE BURCHILL: Eurovision’s bum-note boycott.
The latest “casualty” of the culture wars — though to call it that is to lend it more dignity than it deserves; perhaps we should describe it as the brain-dead brouhaha of the Trash Telly Top Trumps — is the Eurovision Song Contest, from which a growing number of countries are withdrawing their “artistes”. (Though anyone who witnessed last year’s most vocal opponent of Israel, one “Bambi Thug”, might conclude that using the word “artiste” to describe her is about as accurate as calling the contents of a nappy an “artefact”.) The delegations of the unfriendly nations demanded a secret vote on Israel’s participation — for the inevitable reasons — which has sensibly been rejected, indicating that the Eurovision bigwigs are pleasingly determined to dig their heels in, perhaps in the light of how popular the Israeli entry proved with the public last year; ranked joint 14th by the national juries, but dominating the leaderboard due to the results of the online and phone votes. Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK were among the countries whose viewers awarded Israel the maximum 12 points. Once again, the voice of the people (don’t forget the mocked contest attracts a larger European television audience than anything apart from big sports matches) and the voice of the captured Establishment couldn’t have been more at odds.
Not content with creating the circumstances which led to a young woman, Eden Golan, being booed while singing a song about the Hamas pogrom, many of last year’s persecutors are back for a second go. Yuval Raphael, who will represent Israel next year, was actually a survivor of the 2023 attack, so one can imagine the usual self-righteous sadists having an especially fun time barracking her. So far, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands have boycotted the contest; only Spain is one of the Eurovision’s Big Five countries along with France, Germany, Italy and the UK, so I can’t imagine the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) General Assembly getting their scanties in a bunch quite yet.
In the case of Spain and Ireland, though, it’s tempting to shrug, albeit sorrowfully. What did we expect? Spain, the home of the Inquisition, repeated Jewish expulsion and forced conversion, appears to be reverting to type. The same could be said of Ireland, which has taken to anti-Israel activity with a relish that won’t surprise anyone who remembers that Eamon de Valera’s Eire was “neutral” in the war between the Allies and the Axis.
The Netherlands appear to be reverting to type as well:
The Netherlands pulling out of Eurovision over Israel’s participation reminds me how,
for years, the Dutch have proudly framed Anne Frank's story as one of Dutch people protecting Jews.
But in reality, it is a story of Dutch people who turned them over to the Nazis.
— Oren Barsky 🎗️ (@orenbarsky) December 5, 2025