Israel’s contested presence will mark the second Eurovision semi-final | Eurovision

It’s tonight that Eden Golan takes the stage at the 68th Eurovision to sing Hurricane, thus representing his country at the European song festival. It will be the 14th theme to appear on the scene, out of a total of 16. In any other year, with any other competitor, this would be a normal occurrence. But Eden Golan will sing for Israel at a ceremony taking place in Malmö, Sweden, while an Israeli military offensive has been underway in Gaza for seven months, which has already claimed more than 30,000 lives.

The song itself, whose lines contain, for many, more or less veiled references to the Hamas attack on October 7th that caused over a thousand deaths in southern Israel, is controversial. A first version of the theme was rejected by the festival’s organizers, who claim to be apolitical, and the lyrics were then changed to eliminate direct allusions to the Hamas massacre.

At Wednesday’s dress rehearsal, open to the public, Eden Golan was jeered while performing her song, with people shouting “liberate Palestine” and even holding Palestinian flags, visible in https://twitter.com/BrightonPSC/status/1788322381154414613.

All of this has brought different attention to the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, with numerous calls for boycotts and Israel’s removal from the competition, similar to what happened two years ago with Russia. Eden Golan, who was advised by Israeli intelligence services to remain in her room when not singing for security reasons, is also of Ukrainian descent and, until the country’s invasion by the Russian army, was a pop star in Russia, where she grew up. , having returned to Israel two years ago.

The organization did not give in to the appeals and there is therefore reinforced security around everything to do with the competition, with several protests around Malmö. One of them features the presence of climate activist Greta Thunberg. But a demonstration in favor of Israel’s inclusion is also scheduled, to the sound of songs with which the country competed for Eurovision in the past.

The event is assumed to be apolitical, so flags other than those of competing countries or the LGBTQIA+ rainbow are banned from the venue – although there were spectators who managed to smuggle them. In the first semi-final, the one in which the Portuguese iolanda ensured her qualification for the final, Eric Saade, Swedish competitor to Eurovision 2011 and son of a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, used a keffiyeh, symbol of the Palestinian struggle in his hand while performing. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU, which organizes the festival, condemned the act: “All performers are informed of the rules of the competition and we regret that Eric Saade chose to compromise the non-political nature of the event.”

In story published on Instagram, Saade justified himself a posteriori: “This was just my way of showing part of my origin, which is important in a world like this. This keffiyeh it was given to me by my father when I was little, so I would never forget where my family comes from. At that time, I didn’t know that one day the EBU would call it ‘a political symbol’. It’s like calling the ‘Dalarna Horse’ [ícone sueco] a ‘political symbol’… In my eyes, it’s just racism,” he wrote. “I just wanted to be inclusive and wear something that’s authentic to me – but the EBU seems to think my ethnicity is controversial. That doesn’t say anything about me, but it says everything about them. I will stick to slogan this year’s Eurovision: United for Music! I can only hope for some kind of change in the future,” she concluded.

The second semi-final, led by Malin Åkerman and Petra Mede, will be broadcast live from Malmö Arena on RTP1 from 8pm, with Portuguese commentary by Nuno Galopim and José Carlos Malato. The other countries represented are Malta, Albania, Greece, Switzerland, Czechia, Austria, Denmark, Armenia, Latvia, San Marino, Georgia, Belgium, Estonia, Norway and the Netherlands.