My limited understanding of Eurovision is that it has always been rigged.
this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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I'll give you 3 answers, you pick your favourite:
- logical: Fans of Israel's song/ supporters of their government only have 1 song to vote for, everyone else has 25 to choose between
- cynical: there are zionists all over the world, who may be a minority in a population overall, but they all come out of the woodwork and pull together at events like this
- conspiracy: Mosad, the Israeli spy branch of government, set up a bunch of burner phone numbers all over Europe and used those to farm votes for Israel, in order to push the narrative "look, the general public all over Europe support us" (75% of the Italian public vote that went to Israel in 2024 came from newly connected numbers)
You chose which you'd like to believe the most
It's weird they're in a European singing contest to begin with...
Ehh, the North African and Mediterranean Asian countries are all eligible to enter and just choose not to. It has nevsr been strictly European. There are much better reasons to not invite Israel
Didnt they leave to boycott something something?
I think Lebanon is the only one that has officially said they weren't joining in because of Israel. They had an entry prepared for 2005 but the EBU wouldn't agree to edit out Israel's parts for Lebanese broadcast. It might still be part of the reasoning for the others, but it could just be a lack of interest too. I honestly don't know. Morocco actually did compete in 1980 but did terribly and have not come back since. They are all still members of the EBU and therefore eligible to enter if they choose to
It's not really "European" exactly; it's a competition for member nations of the European Broadcast Union, and eligibility criteria for joining that is to be in the "European Broadcasting Area"; which, long story short, includes the whole Mediterranean area.
Is Australia in the European Broadcasting Area?
No, they're a weird special case who have been invited for no obvious reason other than that it makes for a good Eurovision (which, to be fair, is a decent reason).
Everyone else who participates meets the normal criteria though (Israel included).
Australians I've spoken to have mixes feelings. On the one hand, there's a subculture of ozzies who love it because it's the only camp entertainment that gets broadcast out there. They have Eurovision parties and so on, getting together to watch it. Having Australia in the competition might persuade broadcasters to show more camp/silly entertainment.
On the other hand, they agree it's silly to join and still have it called Eurovision, and are worried Australia might taint it somehow