Good Evening, Europe
You suck a lot less than we thought
International boycotts. Iranian-Israeli back-channels, snubs, accusations, and Ireland is big mad. I’m not talking about the war in the Middle East, I’m talking, of course about Eurovision.
If you’ve never heard of the annual singing competition that took place over the weekend in Vienna, just imagine the UN, if the delegates were wearing feathers, the Olympics, if people were judged by their country of origin and not their skill, the World Cup - yet, somehow, gayer.
It’s not surprising that most Americans yawn at the thought of a parade of subpar musical numbers, but their mistake is focusing on the music to begin with. Eurovision is a fascinating geopolitical battlefield, and the only world stage where rabid nationalism meets unapologetic kitsch.
The real show begins when the voting starts, and countries, through panels of judges as well as fans voting from home, get to unleash their lethal arsenal of soft power on one another. And unleash they do. Scandinavian countries all vote for each other, as do the Balkans. Ukraine won in a landslide in 2022, as all the betting markets predicted. But one small country always finds itself being the drama queen of the competition: Israel.
If you look at the news or to certain social media feeds, you will think that Israel has been performing under the flag of the Galactic Empire. Over the last three years, Israeli artists have been met with giant protests, snubs from fellow performers, and even countries dropping out to protest the inclusion of an evil regime in…a singing competition. Israelis have even started rehearsing with boos and jeers to simulate the real thing.
But scratch the glitter, and a much brighter picture begins to emerge. Despite low points from the judges of the respective countries (who wants to deal with all those mean Instagram comments?) Israel has been reeling in record numbers of audience votes, Despite, or perhaps because of the campaign to ostracize her. In 2025, judges ranked Israel in 14th place, while the audience picked it overwhelmingly as their favorite, launching it into second place overall. This year, despite the changing of the rules designed specifically to discourage the support for the Jewish state, a similar thing occurred – which took Israel from eigth place again to second, another vote of confidence from the people of Europe.
Places like The NY Times would like to believe that the public support is all part of a sophisticated campaign from the crafty Zionists to mobilize their supporters, but the voters in countries like Albania, Finland and Portugal – not exactly known for their thriving Jewish communities, each awarded Israel the majority of their points. Check out this neat graphic with the breakdown of Jury vs. Public votes. The British people gave Israel 10 points out of 12, while the British jury gave it zero.
It wasn’t too hard to see this coming. Hundreds of reaction videos on YouTube said nothing of Gaza or Genocide, but marveled at Israeli singer Noam Bettan’s beautiful voice, and the staging of his banger, “Michelle”. Iranians in the diaspora campaigned on their social media accounts to vote for their Israeli brother. And social media viewing numbers for “Michelle” broke all the records.
Our wonderful friends Nika Scothorne and Jeremy Kareken helped bring this viral video to life! Watch for a shot of pride, with a side of chills:
Were the good people of Switzerland paying homage to Theodore Herzl? Was the British vote an affront to Islamist extremism? Or maybe, people love a good sing when they hear one, and are sick of tired of their media and elites telling them who to hate?
None of this may seem important in the grand scheme of things, but to Israelis – it’s a rare opportunity to take the temperature of the world. For us Eurovision is a chance to be the normal country we’ve always wanted to be, one where we go out to bars without calculating where the nearest bomb shelter is and listen to our favorite songs without being interrupted by an alert for an incoming missile attack. It’s a reminder that music is louder than boos, and that our young men can have dance moves in addition to combat experience. Despite our anger at the global community, there’s still a part of us that wanted to have seat at the table. It’s why Israelis hate the UN, but rejoice when they vote in our favor. It’s why we scorn at the Ivy League, and beam when our relative gets accepted to a top program. Most importantly, it’s a much-needed reminder that we are normal, just like everyone else.
I watched Eurovision at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, and noticing my Israeli flag – which at first I held a bit hesitantly and then proudly – people came up to me to tell me how much they loved our entry, including one Swedish-Syrian woman who told me her whole family voted for Israel.
If you ignore the noise and just listen to the music – you’ll find a happier, more beautiful tune underneath the loud booing. You don’t even need to rehearse.
I love this so much! It just proves that the overt hateful bigotry we hear across the West is coming from a tiny but very loud fringe. Most Westerners are positive or indifferent about Israel and Jews.
Let's expose that and make that eliminationist hatred TABOO again, ostracizing it and the people who espouse it to the fringes of our polite societies (as we did to marginalize the KKK) before it appears tolerated and then becomes normalized.
What a lovely write-up. The world is less awful and more normal than it seems. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to focus on Eurovision last week: it helped break a spell of morosity.