Dan’s note: I’ve never followed Eurovision before and I don’t condone or recommend participating in such contests especially with contests taking place on Shabbos among other problems, but with the politics surrounding this year’s contest and how the votes turned out, I felt compelled to write my take on it.
The Eurovision song contest is one of the most popular competitions in the world. The annual competition draws hundreds of millions of viewers and dominates local headlines.
Many countries tried to have Israel banned this year, but the organizer refused to do so, insisting that it remain non-political.
That would prove to be quite the challenge.
Israel’s representative for 2024, Eden Golan, was originally going to sing “October Rain,” referencing the October 7th attack on Israel. That song title and lyrics, which can be found here, were deemed to be too political. Apparently, the world isn’t ready to hear “promise me that never again.” or “I’m still wet from this October Rain.”
Eden faced an unprecedented amount of hate. Perhaps that’s not a surprise, given that Sweden decided to host the contest in Malmo?
It's bizarre that Eurovision is being held in Malmö. I lived in Malmö, and it is by far the unsafest city I have ever lived in (and I come from Yemen). I lived by Triangeln, a central part of the city – and I heard explosions almost every week. I could not believe my ears. My…
— Luai Ahmed (@JustLuai) May 1, 2024
Tens of thousands of protestors meant that Eden needed security tighter than most heads of state:
Who are they protecting her from? https://t.co/8dF7TZAxYc
— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) May 9, 2024
Protestors shouted at Eden in front of her hotel:
A esta hora, miles de musulmanes radicales junto a activistas de la extrema izquierda rodean el hotel de la cantante israelí de 20 años, Eden Golan, a horas de la final de Eurovision. Algunos han llegado durante la madrugada para que la chica no duerma.pic.twitter.com/ZmUVOfxkpm
— Agustín Antonetti (@agusantonetti) May 11, 2024
Protestors had the usual anti-Semitic chants, glorifying the mastermind of the 10/7 rapes, beheadings, and kidnapping, and telling Jews to go back to Poland’s concentration camps.
Wanna lose any last residue of faith in the human race?
Hear this!Greta Thunberg is in Malmö for the Eurovision song contest
Today, to save the planet, she chanted with the crowds "Sinwar, we will not let you die"
And "Jews, go back to Poland!" pic.twitter.com/goNY0LhuXo— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) May 9, 2024
Ouch indeed!
Ouch. pic.twitter.com/smFZf6ysJy
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) May 10, 2024
Other contestants made petty protests against Eden.
And some apologized for interacting with her:
20 years-old Israeli singer, Eden Golan, was dancing with Finish singer Käärijä today, the video got thousands of hateful comments to the point that the Finish singer had to apologize for being seen with this Israeli girl.
Can you think of any other country which an artist will… pic.twitter.com/6nX4bVjLl5
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 10, 2024
Victim blaming Israel has been popular throughout this war that was started by Hamas, so I guess there’s no surprise that Eden is victim blamed for showing up?
An aggressively rude journalist insinuates Israeli Eurovision entrant Eden Golan is putting the public at risk by being there. She replies “this is for everyone” and the press pool cheers and applauds her. That put the victim blamer in his place.pic.twitter.com/JYvVqJ0u60
— Heidi Bachram 🎗️ (@HeidiBachram) May 9, 2024
But Chabad was there to have her back. (Disclaimer: Tsnius)
As was the Prime Minister:
עדן אנחנו גאים בך ❤️ pic.twitter.com/UmAqQdCCit
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) May 9, 2024
You can view the studio version of Eden’s song here. (Disclaimer: Tsnius, Kol Isha, Sefira)
You can also listen to covers of the song without Kol Isha by Pirchei Yerushalayim Choir and with the October Rain lyrics. (Disclaimer: Sefira)
The crowds booed from the rehearsal to the end, though the boos were filtered out in the broadcast version of her semifinal performance and final performance. (Disclaimer: Tsnius, Kol Isha, Sefira)
But it was the voting that really caught my eye.
Millions of viewers from 14 countries and the rest of the world outside of Europe gave Israel a 1st place finish. That’s a whopping 15 first place finishes out of 36 participating countries and the rest of the world.
That’s actually really impressive given the climate that we’re in these days!
The stakes are high. Aside from bragging rights, the winning country also hosts next year’s contest.
But while Eden won the 2nd semi-final which is only based on viewer votes, for the final the viewer votes are only half of the total points. The other half of the points are from juries of 5 people from each country. The jury members can’t discuss the performances, they each vote on their own.
Before you say I’m paranoid about the results, just take a look at this juror (who clearly knows nothing about the history of Israel), who notes that despite being told to leave politics at home, he opted to intentionally exclude Israel from his votes.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1789717054926254263
So is there any surprise that no juries awarded Israel with a 1st place finish?
Or that no juries awarded Israel with a 2nd place finish?
Israel finished in 1st place from viewers in Australia, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, but juries from those 12 countries didn’t even give Israel a spot in the top 10. They didn’t give Israel a single point!
Talk about leaving their politics at home.
Only 3 of the countries where voters gave Israel a 1st place finish had juries that voted for Israel at all, Belgium’s jury gave Israel 6th place, France gave Israel 8th place, and Germany gave Israel 3rd place.
Then again, last year’s Swedish winner said she wouldn’t hand the trophy over to Eden if she won.
While Eden earned 323 points from the viewers vote, good for 2nd place, she only earned 52 points from the juror vote, which was good for 12th place for the juror vote, and dropped her to 5th place overall.
Below is a chart that I compiled to illustrate all of this:
| Country voting for Israel | Popular viewer vote for Israel | Juries vote for Israel | Point differential |
|---|---|---|---|
| Albania | 2nd place (10 points) | 0 points | -10 |
| Armenia | 10th place (1 point) | 0 points | -1 |
| Australia | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Austria | 2nd place (10 points) | 0 points | -10 |
| Azerbaijan | 4th place (7 points) | 0 points | -7 |
| Belgium | 1st place (12 points) | 6th place (5 points) | -7 |
| Croatia | 0 points | 0 points | 0 |
| Cyprus | 2nd place (10 points) | 3rd place (8 points) | -2 |
| Czechia | 2nd place (10 points) | 0 points | -10 |
| Denmark | 3rd place (8 points) | 0 points | -8 |
| Estonia | 5th place (6 points) | 6th place (5 points) | -1 |
| Finland | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| France | 1st place (12 points) | 8th place (3 points) | -9 |
| Georgia | 3rd place (8 points) | 8th place (3 points) | -5 |
| Germany | 1st place (12 points) | 3rd place (8 points) | -4 |
| Greece | 4th place (7 points) | 0 points | -7 |
| Iceland | 3rd place (8 points) | 0 points | -8 |
| Ireland | 2nd place (10 points) | 0 points | -10 |
| Italy | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Latvia | 4th place (7 points) | 9th place (2 points) | -5 |
| Lithuania | 8th place (3 points) | 7th place (4 points) | +1 |
| Luxembourg | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Malta | 6th place (5 points) | 8th place (3 points) | -2 |
| Moldova | 2nd place (10 points) | 8th place (3 points) | -7 |
| Netherlands | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Norway | 6th place (5 points) | 3rd place (8 points) | +3 |
| Poland | 6th place (5 points) | 0 points | -5 |
| Portugal | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| San Marino | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Serbia | 8th place (3 points) | 0 points | -3 |
| Slovenia | 2nd place (10 points) | 0 points | -10 |
| Spain | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Sweden | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Switzerland | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Ukraine | 0 points | 0 points | 0 |
| United Kingdom | 1st place (12 points) | 0 points | -12 |
| Rest of World | 1st place (12 points) | - | - |
| Total points | 323 | 52 | -271 |
Is anyone surprised?
https://twitter.com/elderofziyon/status/1789637761630146737
The 2024 gap (323 points from the public and just 52 points from juries) was unprecedented:
- In 2023, Israel had 185 points from the public and 177 from juries.
- In 2021, Israel had 20 points from the public and 70 from juries.
- In 2018, Israel had 317 points from the public and 212 from juries, and took 1st place.
- In 2017, Israel had 5 points from the public and 34 from juries.
- In 2016, Israel had 11 points from the public and 124 from juries.
But in the end, in the face of incredible adversity, Eden Golan stood as a proud Jew, not a Jew with trembling knees, but one ready to take on the world, even if the world is blinded by hate and lies.
So what do you think? Coincidence that no jurors gave Israel a high place finish or did Israel never have a chance this year?
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85 Comments On "Was Eurovision Fixed? Israel Received 15 First Place Finishes From Voters But 0 From Country Juries…"
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Never heard of the Eurovision before seeing it in headlines this week. It is scary feels like 1938 Germany
If you don’t like feeling that way change the media you are consuming and it will go away.
I’m stuck on the Norwegian juror openly admitting that he violated the guidelines.
He said the quiet part out loud, but there’s no doubt that many were on that same page.
Sort of like there is some jury nullification voting going on in trials at courts in the US, in other circumstances too some jurors also quietly vote against the rules or the system to “stand their ground” (on the basis of values, ideology, identity) and do their own version of jury nullification in the face of unhappiness with the system or the masters of the system. [The ultimate nullification usually comes from the masters of the system who exercise the privilege of “prosecutorial discretion” or of policing and rules-setting decisions, but blaming such privileged actors in charge of “the game” or “the contest” is less popular than blaming individuals exercising their own judgment and not doing as the system master wants.] This year, the EBU seems to have perhaps split the difference and become more popular with a different constituency than it was with its traditional national voting public and national jury pools. If Russia and Ukraine were to both have been in the contest this year and in all of the recent prior years, it would have made the voting even all the more interesting this year. In that case, I suspect we would have seen Israel would have gotten far fewer 12 point votes from the national public voting pools and done no better in with the national jurors either.
While the national jurors very often have a different sense of musical performance appreciation than the their own national voting public in these contests, it shouldn’t be surprising that the less anonymous national jurors are less willing to publicly stand in support of a country pounding hard another people. But even otherwise there is plenty of precedent for there being big differences between what the public vote supports and what national juror vote supports in these contests.
We are told most of the world hates Israel. How did they finish 1st in semi and 2nd in finals for the public vote. This makes no sense. Waiting for your in-depth investigative report.
Media doesn’t represent actual people.
You are told by the media. Certain administrations, famous people, and media often don’t represent the public.
The is a silent majority in the US. It’s no different in the rest of the world.
People who have and want influence often have bigger egos. Telling the truth, doing the right thing, Goin with the flow and will of God is an ego-less, though spiritually rewarding experience. It requires humility.
SO obviously biased. No question. She never had a chance 100% political. 100% antisemetic.
Israel came in second place and finished very close behind first place when it came to the public vote for the final. The jury vote — not the public vote — is what got stacked against the Israeli contestant. The jury vote may have been influenced by the Israeli media delegation and a Swedish camerawoman harassing the Netherlands Joost Klein and those provocations and his reaction leading to Joost Klein being banned from performing in the final. The EBU and SVT was sort of trying to push the story that Klein was under arrest when he really was only under preliminary investigation for threatening expression and free to move about. Then some of the jury members seemed to have decided to take that banning of the Netherlands’ contestant out on the Israeli contestant because they assumed it had something to do with his questioning the Swedish moderator about why the Israeli contestant was being told to not answer the question. The Israeli contestant was a class act in how she answered the question anyway and she had no involvement in advocating for the banning of Joost Klein with his pro-EU anthem song dedicated to his parents who died when he was 12/13 years old and the father whom he told he would make it to ESC. He made it with “Europapa” as his song, just not to the final.
Later this week I will probably hear more about what went on with Joost Klein.
I don’t follow Eurovision at all, never watched it before, but when the numbers started getting posted I was extremely confused trying to make sense of their scoring system, and then when I finally did figure it out, it was clear as day that it didn’t make any sense. I sampled 2022’s voting results to compare, and the juries were not this far out of touch with voters… makes you wonder.
The world will never accept the Jews…and that is the way it is meant to be.
We need to be a nation apart, a nation of Torah and Avodat Hashem.
We need to stop trying to fit in with all of the goyishe garbage.
Maybe 8 months ago a person could still argue that we were being accepted into the world of nations.
No more!
100%
I still don’t understand why it bothers us? This is exactly what should be, and for our benefit!!
Don’t understand why it bothers us? Because we are waiting for the time when Hallelu es Hashem KOL goyim, and Ki az ehpoch el AMIM … lavdo shchem echad.
This is enough to make one extremely bothered
Exactly. % correct.
Of course it’s biased. But this is completely predicted in our holy Torah.
Like is said in the Tochacha- if we won’t separate ourselves from the goyim in the proper way, they will separate themselves from us improperly.
Wish there was a like button for your comment! 1 million percent true!
Same
The jury votes are clearly worthless and can be ignored.
Meaning Eden won second place which is perfect because now these other a-holes aren’t invited to Tel Aviv next year.
When the Yidden don’t make Kiddush, the Goyim will make havdalah.
Seems to me the obvious question is whether there is typically a big difference between the jury preferences and the public votes.
Yes
This gap was unprecedented.
In 2023, Israel had 185 points from the public and 177 from juries.
In 2021, Israel had 20 points from the public and 70 from juries.
In 2018, Israel had 317 points from the public and 212 from juries, and took 1st place.
In 2017, Israel had 5 points from the public and 34 from juries.
In 2016, Israel had 11 points from the public and 124 from juries.
It’s not unprecedented for there to be large discrepancies between the public vote and the jury vote in the ESC finals. Speaking of all contestants participating in ESC.
What GUWonder said! Just look at Finland last year for a recent example (the vote difference was Public – 376, Jury 150)
1. That difference isn’t as large.
2. Judges here openly said they didn’t vote for Israel for political reasons!
No, the other Dan is asking about whether other countries see a similarly large gap between the public and jury votes. The answer is no, there is normally not such an enormous gap. Not only this, but this is the largest gap in the history of Eurovision between the public and the jury votes for any country.
There are more EBU member countries now than 50 years ago, and the contest is soon approaching 70 years of being around. Politics and anti-war sentiment is nothing new as a feature — not a bug — in ESC dynamics when it comes to one or both of the voting pools for the contest. It was always naive to believe that “United by Music” like this was ever going to be free of political dynamics for either one or both of the voting pools for all of the contestant countries.
The loudest and most rancorous booing at ESC inside the arena was directed at the EBU — not at any of the contestants.
The best thing about ESC is that I extracted very good value out of redeeming hotel program points across the host city. Especially when seeing hotels asking for 2.5-8 times more money for a night than the lowest rates which I had paid in the prior year.
Can anyone explain why Israel is in Eurovision to begin with? It’s the only non-european country. Even turkey has at least some part of it in Europe. I never really got that.
It doesn’t have to do with being part of Europe, rather with being a member of the European Broadcasting Union which Israel is a part of (as well as Australia)
Turkey is boycotting Eurovision because of … (Google it). Even Morocco participated once.
After 2012, Turkey quit ESC because it was furious that they were doing awful with the jury vote and wanted the jury vote to be scrapped or demoted in weight. Turkey found the public vote much, much better for them while the national jury vote was awful for them.
Back around 1975, Greece refused to participate in ESC because of Turkey being in it. In 1974, Turkey claimed it was defending ethnic Turks in Cyprus after a Greek military coup meant to try to unite Cyprus with Greece. And so Turkey invaded and bad population resettlement games and territorial division ensued.
Politics and disposition toward contemporary wars for the time being relevant to ESC is nothing new nor unprecedented. It’s older than many here.
Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, and some others like Israel pay to be members of the European Broadcasting Union just like the broadcasters from the EU/Schengen countries and the UK. That EBU membership/payment is the requirement to qualify for a national broadcaster to send contestants to ESC. The big paying broadcaster countries are each guaranteed a spot in the ESC final regardless of how bad their act.
It’s ironic and telling that Joost Klein was booted from the final in the ESC given his song was a song about European unity in a European contest that claims to be uniting people by music.
I just learned that Ukrainians were angry. She used to live in Moscow until 2022 and apparently performed in Crimea. Enev though she was a child, I understand that anger.
She is Russian-Israeli, although by heritage she is also perhaps in part from one of the Baltic republics (Latvia perhaps rather than what some would presume to otherwise have been Lithuania).
The Israeli public vote in the ESC went heavily in favor of the Luxembourg contestant who also has a family connection to Israel. Not a surprise to me but the final vote tallies confirmed what I was thinking to be likely anyway.
The public is formally only allowed to vote for other countries’ contestants and not their own, but sometimes there seems to be a lot of neighborly backscratching going on in the voting patterns.
And we all know why the “winner” won. He sang a song about being Transgender, that’s the qualification today.
I had assumed the Swiss candidate Nemo sang a song about computer programming while dancing around in a skirt or tutu. It took some younger folks to inform me that “The Code” song was about “breaking the code” in a world where programming is traditionally dependent upon binaries of 0 and 1.
There have been non-binary people long before any of our ancestors and will be long after us too. Ans whatever created humanity created a specie with non-binary people too. Have some respect for all of creation — no matter how uncomfortable it may feel — and welcome the stranger; welcome dignity for all human beings; welcome equality under the law; welcome respect for dissent; welcome love of truth.
Correct. There was and will always be confused and mentally ill people.
Incorrect about “welcoming” this Toeva. It’s the opposite of dignity.
(Not sure how your confused comment got past the mods)
Why insert hate of LGBT+ people into this thread for absolutely no reason? Nevo from Switzerland did nothing wrong. Did you see their speech? They asked for peace. Your bigotry is showing.
The same way that there was pressure from the pro-Hamas crowd, there was also a strong coordinated campaign to vote for Eden. It’s more likely that instead of judges undervaluing her performance, the voters overvalued it. When the pro-Hamas group is saying “don’t vote for Eden” but isn’t putting forth a particular country to support, that vote gets split up among the other 24 participants, but when a campaign focuses on boosting a particular country (in this case Israel/Eden) it becomes much easier to boost that candidate.
Basically, I think the judges were more or less correct in their assessments and the pro-Israel diaspora (which is very large, despite what social media will have you believe) was responsible for a lot of Eden’s success with the voters. Notice that Ukraine had similar voter success while lacking judge points.
Maybe but also if you try to ignore the blatant antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment from SO MANY countries than you are in denial. To prove your point about collective voting, I am in the US and voted 10x for Israel and I’ve never seen or participated in Eurovision before. AYC
The Jewish diaspora isn’t likely to be what massively tipped the public voting in Israel’s favor. A lot of people support the underdog, and the person being told they have no place gets a lot of sympathy in parts. Also, it’s increasingly popular in Europe to be anti-Muslim and anti-“brown and black” people and so that crowd increasingly moving to the political right rallies around support for Israel not because of an opposition to antisemitism or a love of Israel but because for now they prioritize more going against Muslims and “brown” and “black” people. Europe has sort of done this before but in a more brutal way centuries ago with prioritizing opposition to the Muslims/Moors and eventually bundling in the Islamophobic campaigns with accompanying antisemitic ones too.
Definitely bias but at the end of the day the popular vote is how the whole world sees us as opposed to a few loud mouths.
As someone who has watched Eurovision in previous years, this is not unprecedented. It’s actually fairly typical, and why the voting methods are so odd. Because they know noone is immune to politics no matter how much they want it to be. And there has always been SO much politics and controversy in this contest. This year, there were so many good songs, it’s incredible that Israel made it so far. Just remember, this is a contest that has had Israel included for decades. They’ve won the contest a few times, including just a couple of years ago with Netta.
Can you give an example of a singer and year when the gap between the popular vote and jury vote was this wide?
Norway 2019 was pretty close with a 251 gap disparity. And Ukraine was the obvious one in 2022 with 247 points. Considering how bad their song was, it was clearly all about politics. And everyone wanted Russia booted from the contest.
Norway 2019 was the biggest previously (that competition took place in Israel, by the way). It also goes the other way sometimes (Sweden got 253 from the juries in 2018, but only 21 from the public for the reverse difference of 232).
Maybe Israel should have bowed out of the contest. To be in the face of all these haters and to trigger the vile sewers of their brains wasn’t worth it. It was clear that sportsmanship went totally out the window. You see how Eden was treated by other contestants. And then they had the temerity to claim that the Israeli contingent bullied others. I think the Norwegian creep summed it up neatly: we were instructed to be objective, but I did exactly what I felt like.
My take? Down with Palestine and its idiotic supporters.
The Finnish guy from last year said “no war” at the end of his performance this year and annoyed the Swedish officials for just that.
He got along personally very well with the Israeli contestant this year and they were on friendly terms. He knows she’s going back to join the IDF after the Eurovision thing is no longer her thing.
I personally wanted the old Estonian guys to win even before the Danish singer failed to qualify for the finals.
The only contestant who got a cabinet minister level type security escort to and from the events venue was the Israeli contestant. Don’t know about you, but some of the security types are not the friendliest people around when on the job, and that can be considered annoying like when dealing with a gruff TSA security screener who wants to rub his hands on you where you wouldn’t dare to touch another strange man or woman in public. Then add in some annoying media staff and all the focus on Israel’s participation, and it’s a recipe for friction even while the contestants respected each other’s space.
It’s a shame Eden had to go through this. She is NOT representing her govt. Israel is not at fault for what is happening. The extremists in the govt and in Palestine are responsible. They do NOT want peace. Disgusted with everything that’s happening. Pre-Oct 7th, Oct-7th and After Oct 7th. NONE OF THAT SHOULD SIT WELL with the civilized world. Colonialism, Terrorism, and Terrorism ALL should be condemned. May god bless the People of Israel and People of Palestine.
You’re oversimplifying it by saying “extremists in the government”. Also, if you believe they are “colonists”, then that’s not just “extremists”, that’s every Israeli.
Oh please.. Colonists?
Not one of these childish haters knows anything about history, especially the history of Israel, ancient and recent.
Of they say words like “colonists”, it is simply parroting the swill they hear on TikTok.
Every single country in the world has been conquered, most of them multiple times. EVERYTHING is “colonized”.
If we go back far enough and are honest about the nature of man with too much barbarianism, we can safely assume all people today are the descendant of one or more rapists. But that doesn’t justify rape. Much the same could be said with regard to whataboutism over colonization.
Long before the British displaced the Ottomans as the power in the area, there have been Jewish peoples in these lands where Israelis, Palestinians and other Arabs currently live under Israeli rule. The UN supported the creation of Israel as a state in certain lands, and so that too also means that “colonist” and “Israeli” aren’t one and the same.
What colonialism?
The reason for the fighting is the unwillingness of the local Arabs to accept the organized settlement of Jews in the land of Israel. from the Nebi Musa riots in 1920 to the Chevron Massacre of mostly non-Zionist Jews in 1929, the position is clear: Jews are not welcome here, regardless of policy, politics or religiosity.
Israel has made and offered numerous concessions: from the partition plan of 1947, The wye river and camp David proposals, the Lebanon gas concessions of 2021 and the withdrawals. from Sinai and Gaza.
Israel was opening up the border more and more with Gaza; providing work permits and permitting the flow of goods and money. These attempts at peace were reciprocated with violence and barbarism. Those slaughtered in the border towns on Oct 7 were the peaceniks who were against the current Israeli government and who dedicated their lives to helping Gazans.
The local Arabs engage in constant glorifying of terror and violence against civilians and even encourage it with official government pensions and perks for those who engage in the murder and attempted murder of Jews.
it is universally acknowledged by the honest that if Hamas PIJ, Hezbollah and Gazan society put down their weapons there would be peace; if the Jews gave up their weapons their would be hundreds or thousands of Oct 7s.
I will chalk up your incorrect framing to ignorance; don’t feel bad, some of the otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable teachers at the Public School I work at suffer from the same misapprehensions.
The Muslim Ottomans ruled the Holy Land from 1517 to 1917 and there was no war there pretty much that entire period. 100 years later, after the west and Israeli takeover, and there’s wars and killings every decade.
Very clever…..
Ok, lets find a murderous, slave holding, castrating, brutal empire to turn the area over to.
Lack of “war” does not mean lack of violence.
Rather, The Ottomans were a haven for Jews fleeing antisemitism and persecution. It’s a remarkable contrast.
Btw’ just FYI, Luxembourg had also Jewish israeli singer who’s born in Yerushalaim and her parents moved to Luxembourg for business years ago. Israel jury gave their 12 points to Luxembourg and Luxembourg public viewers gave their 12 points for israel.
Never had a chance and teaches the Zionists that just having a state doesn’t buy us equality in the world.
Definitely, something is up with so many zeros, but this can be compared to Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars (season 11). She got the lowest score from the judges multiple times, yet the viewers kept her alive. Her dances were terrible, but conservative fans of her mom kept her in the competition until the end of the season.
Shouldn’t the jurors be disqualified because they purposely went against the contest guidelines by bringing politics into their decision making?
One would think, though most won’t be saying the quiet part out loud.
Antisemitism and hate towards us jews is nothing new we will always be hated and persecuted its gds way of unifying us if we are not for each other who will be there for us am echad lev achad just shows how we need to be united and support each other am yisrael chai may gd avenge our lost brothers and sisters and may we all return to teshuvah and end this geuala to the final redemption amen.
Wondering aloud, this sheep of 24 year old, literally reads off the disclaimer he’s supposed to have followed to do his job, then admits to the world he didn’t follow the rules?!
What kind of repurcussions can be thrown his way for that alone? At a miminum, be barred and public apology for future troublemakers. Perhaps even a suit against him, with either jail or community service (in Gaza) for violating his oath?
You had ONE job bruh
If Eurovision management has a brain, regardless of political orientation, they will sue this guy for all he’s worth due to the irreparable damage he has done to their reputation.
Sue in Norway? That is what they would have to do for it to have a chance unless we are talking about a tin pot authoritarian state with a crooked judiciary.
Have you seen what goes on with fine amounts in Norway? If I were a juror for ESC in Norway, I would be more concerned about the fine for driving 120 km/hour in a 60km zone in the middle of nowhere in Norway than in being sued in Norway for annoying someone annoyed with the ESC juror voting thing.
As Rav Soloveichik is quoted to have said “if we don’t make the kiddush they make the havdala”
Truly excellent piece, Dan, especially considering that you don’t regularly follow the contest. It is crystal clear that a 1st or 2nd place finish was literally stolen from Eden.
Appreciate that, thanks!
And yes, it seems clear to me that many judges were on the same page as the idiot judge who said the quiet part out loud.
Just a thought!
If there was a Palestinian singer from Gaza that had the most amazing performance, would you vote for them? Of give them a zero? So we’re all in this together about it being political. This time it just worked out against us.
I think you completely missed my point, but OK.
You know we have real problems, right? Actual, real problems involving real people and their lives and not some 3rd rate talent show.
Sure, but there is no mutual exclusivity here. The same can be said about the regular content of the site, like posting good deals and credit card information. If you’re looking for general news, this isn’t the right place.
Half of the participants identified as LGBTGIDREBFXD+, witches, or held other diverse identities. While our attention is naturally drawn to the antisemitism, it’s shocking to witness the pervasive moral decline in the West. Hatred towards the countries people live in or have migrated to has become disturbingly accepted and normalized. Allowing serial offenders to roam free is now commonplace. Open bigotry and bullying have become alarmingly routine. It appears that moral standards have ceased to exist. Yes, we may be the initial target, but it’s a grim reality that the West will likely succumb to the same fate. We are merely a symptom of this larger issue.
“So what do you think? Coincidence that no jurors gave Israel a high place finish or did Israel never have a chance this year?“
Dan you already answered the question.
Amazing work.
we don’t believe in conspiracy’s and we don’t believe in coincidence either, the facts talk for themselves.
Me thinks that the popular vote is extremely encouaraging
being that the jury vote is recorded i wouldnt write them off as antisemites
they are just too scared to have protests under their homes
You’re wrong. Eden Golan finished in fifth place, much better than the 7-8 spot that bookies were giving her a week ago. She did an amazing job, but was by no means the best act of the show. Switzerland and Croatia, which came in 1 and 2, were the fan favorites for months, and were clearly better songs by Eurovision standards.
The judges rated her reasonably. I could make the opposite argument to what many are saying here. The reason she did so well in the popular vote was more related to “politics” than how she did with the judges. She was a political cause that we all supported.
Eurovision worked very hard to include Eden and protect her. There’s no need to start accusing them of antisemitism.
I posted my comments about what I expected from the ESC here:
https://liveandletsfly.com/bulgaria-air-magazine/#comments
Seems like my feeds were very much correct in indicating that the Israeli contestant would do very well with the public vote. The EBU itself is a mess and the jury vote has sort of done the EBU a favor by stacking the vote against Israel in order to avoid ending up with Israel hosting the next Eurovision Song Contest.
I happened to be at the performance venue repeatedly for the event and also at the places where Ronen Bar went in town and where the Israeli delegation was staying during the event.
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GUWonder REPLY
May 11, 2024 at 1:17 pm
I was just provided some numbers about what we are to expect from the European Parliament elections, and seems like the swing to the right with the far right may be such that this could be a real monkey wrench in the ability of the EU to act together to get things done under new legislation.
The quasi-joke is that if Israel wins tonight’s Eurovision Song Contest – and it has extremely high chances to win for a couple of reasons — then the EP is going to be in for a bigger than already anticipated swing to the far right. And then from that point expect less in the way of big consumer friendly moves under new legislation from the EU.
GUWonder REPLY
May 12, 2024 at 2:32 am
Israel got second place in the Eurovision Song Contest among the voting public in the contest, and Israel was close to beating Croatia — which was first — in that regard.
But between the votes of the public and the votes of the jury members in the contest, a big boost was given by the jury (as opposed to the voting public) to Switzerland, France, Croatia and Ukraine. And that jury voting put Israel at a disadvantage and sent Israel to 5th place. The ESC voting public put Israel in second place, just barely behind Croatia.
GUWonder
May 12, 2024 at 2:37 am
https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2024#switzerland
It was interesting to see which country’s voting public gave the maximum 12 votes to Israel — especially keeping in mind that the voting public in the contest historically tends to be centrist or left of center.
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Luai Ahmed claims he as a Yemeni found Malmo to be the least safe city? The guy must not really know Yemen very well, and Yemen is still one of the most gun-infested places on the planet and very dangerous for me.
He claimed to live by the Trianglen train station area in Malmo. Then he is exaggerating the danger to residents of that area of the city and in most of Malmo. Most of the “explosions” he could have possibly heard around that neighborhood were either store-bought fireworks or fortunately did nothing more than just property damage on a couple of occasions around there over the past 20 years. There is far more danger for me around the US even in most every US city of Malmo’s size. And even for US cities much bigger and much smaller than that, the US is much more dangerous than Malmo.
About booing inside the Malmo Arena during the final, the biggest boos at times seemed directed at the EBU itself. That says something when the people paying for the most expensive tickets of the week are booing the masters of the contest.
Will be interesting to see where the 2025 contest is held in Switzerland. Seemed like the jury members wanted to play neutral and non-binary and so voted big time for Switzerland which, as winner, will be hosting next (unless they give it to someone else).
Israel probably got some extra support from Pro-Istael viewers instead of just based off the music, so it probably evened out.
The best part of Israels credibility burning in flames is the pure delusion that it’s doing better than ever. Taking the Republican method of plugging your ears and pretending public opinion is “fake news” and “media control”.
It’s called “Eurovision” — Israel shouldn’t even be participating as it’s not part of Europe. Problem solved.
Israel’s IPBC/Kan/Makan is part of EBU, and thus Israel is entitled to participate as a paid member of EBU. Even Australia — that country “Down Under” — is part of EBU and can participate in Eurovision.
Eurovision has been rigged for years.
2022: Ukraine is on top of the news cycle, and coincidentally wins the competition
2023: Sweden needs to win so they can host the next competition on the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s win. They do.
2024: Eurovision’s unofficial theme is LGBTQIA. One of the interstitial acts refers to music as a queer industry. A genetic male who identifies as non-binary, wore a pink skirt, and sang a song about escaping gender norms wins.
What amazed me the most was the outcries of hate for Israel. No country in the Middle East is more LGBT+ friendly, while Palestinians still actively persecute homosexuality. Of course, Malmo is apparently known for anti-semitism.