Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.
They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.
Despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.
Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE said it felt that its “participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.”
In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that “participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values that are essential to us”.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: “The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it.”
“This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final… nor the preliminary semi-finals.”
Continue reading here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde6d8wyp79o
This is antisemitism. Don’t do it, don’t upvote it, don’t spread it. Israeli ethnonationalism is not reducible to the Jewish religion. There is nothing in Judaism that deterministically leads to apartheid and genocide. Many Jews see the “chosen people” story as an intergenerational responsibility to unfuck the world (Tikkun Olam). Many Jews are antizionists precisely because of their Judaism.
But it’s also the central conceit of Zionism. Things can be more than one thing at the same time.
There is nothing unique about Zionism in how it weaponizes religion. Same as “Christian nationalism” in the US, like Hindutva in India, like all kinds of Islamism, like Francoism or like any other clerical fascism. We should be better than to accept the weaponized forms of religions. Unless you consider something as silly as “Mohammed was a pedophile” as a useful counter to Daesh, which is terminally unserious.
Can’t we just hate all religion equally?
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WTF are you talking about. It is of course possible to be antisemitic towards Zionists.
And the «semitic» argument is bullshit, it is basically rehashing 19th century white supremacist pseudoscientific racism. The term is currently basically only used to describe language families similar to the term «indo-european».
The word antisemitism has a precise meaning: the «discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).»
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The problem with this statement is both outlooks are true. Some jews see the chosen people story as an intergenerational responsibility to unfuck the world. While others see it as inheriting the world and all that is on it.