Bulletins and News Discussion from May 6th to May 12th, 2024 - The Nagorno-Karabakh Nosedive - COTW: Armenia

Several members of their delegation, including the writer of their song and their choreographer spent all week antagonising countries delegations that they deemed not friendly enough to them. Following them around, asking loaded questions like 'why won't you talk to us, why do you hate Israel' etc, trying to bait artists and delegations into saying something that Israel could then use to try and get them banned or in trouble with the EBU for violating the strict policies on behaviour (and of course play the victim themselves).

Israeli credentialled press also got in on this and helped escalate it. By the end of the week they were straight up harassing, stalking, and secretly filming other performers who had asked not to be filmed backstage (which is their right in the rules and in fact a law in Sweden). This wasn't limited to performers either. A Spanish journalist was repeatedly intimidated and targeted by them and when, during Israel's rehearsal, Israeli press were instead filming him and throwing comments at them, he said Free Palestine at them. He then describes how at least three of them got in his face, acted aggressively etc. The Spanish broadcaster of the competition filed some sort of complaint with the EBU and released a statement insisting that the EBU protect the rights of press to free speech and a lack of intimidation.

The aforementioned members of Israel's delegation were posting a lot of these to social media with extremely negative and sometimes outright threatening messages - especially focused of the Dutch, Greek, and Irish performers who had showed solidarity with Palestine in subtle ways or before the competition - calling them 'enemies' and in one case saying about a performer 'an antisemite has no right to sing or stand near us or even breathe'. This is obviously an extreme violation of the EBU behaviour policies.

Furthermore, the Israeli broadcaster showing it in Israel was openly and outright insulting to the Irish performer in their coverage of their performance, instructing their audience to 'get their curses and swears ready' for her. This also breaks the restrictions and rules about broadcaster conduct which are quite strict (Britain's infamous narrators of the broadcasts, Terry Wogan and now Graham Norton, were famous for using understatement and sarcasm to stay on the right side of the rules while often poking fun at the competition).

The EBU did not once seem to chastise, punish, or even accept the complaints about the Israeli delegation. And the (never before happened) disqualification of the Dutch entry during the contents for some exchange of words, that we still don't what they were, that witnesses at the time said was 'barely anything' was essentially an extreme example that there appeared to be one rule for everyone who wasn't Israel and basically no rules or enforcement in regards to Israel.

The Irish entry formally complained about this before the final and may have threatened not to participate, demanding equal investigation into Israel's behaviour. The EBU appears to have at least given some sort of handwaving assurance but of course it remains to be seen if they'll actually follow through now it's over.

There's a shitload of other issues and controversies, but that's the Israel delegation stuff.

Oh, EBU is the European Broadcasting Union by the way. They run and own Eurovision.

Israel got like 300 points from audience votes I wouldn’t be surprised if there were bot farms involved.

antisemetic napping: