Efforts Already Underway To Ban Israel from Next Year’s Eurovision

Eurovision is over for another year (hallelujah!). But the politics driving the event still has some fire in it.

Anti-Israel officials are clearly seething about the fact Israeli entrant Yuval Raphael—a survivor of the October 7th Nova music festival massacre—won the popular vote and are accusing the country of vote-rigging.

Even in Spain, whose official Eurovision ‘jury’ awarded Israel zero points, ordinary viewers awarded Raphael the full 12 points. And that’s after Spanish television channel RTVE broke European Broadcasting Union rules by screening an anti-Israeli message:

When human rights are at stake, silence is not an option. Peace and Justice for Palestine.

And in Britain, presenters of the Eurovision coverage have faced criticism for failing to mention that Raphael is a survivor of Hamas’ October 7th attacks.

Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also insisted on Monday—after the 2025 song contest had come to an end—that Israel should be excluded from Eurovision. He said that because Russia has not been allowed to participate since its invasion of Ukraine, “therefore Israel shouldn’t either, because what we cannot allow is double standards in culture.” His comments have unsurprisingly received a lot of support on social media.

Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet reported that the only reason Israel kept its place this year was because German broadcaster ARD warned that “if Israel is excluded, we will also withdraw.” German officials also on Tuesday voted to block the European Union from reviewing its cooperation agreement with Israel.

If Israel is allowed to participate in the 2026 competition, further protests by pro-Palestine activists should be expected.