The Netherlands will withdraw from 2026 Eurovision if Israel is allowed to compete
Netherlands will boycott 2026 Eurovision if Israel participates, says broadcaster
As shit as the European song contest is, i hope everyone does the same and only israel will vompete with no one.
Ireland announced yesterday that they will.
Slovenia was first 🙂, but I think they weren't definitive about it. Probably they wanted to wait so they wouldn't be the only one.
Israel gets kicked out way before that. They have a population of 10million. Spain and the Netherlands are much larger then that. More viewers = more money
Australia are gonna sit quietly in the corner and not say a word in the hopes that Europe forgets we’re still allowed to compete
Hey, we did get one good song out of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVbShUW6QBM
As a Dutch person, I'm very glad we've made this decision. After reading about Ireland doing the same I didn't think we would but I'm glad that we did and also that we've decided on this somewhat early instead of waiting to see what the "bigger" countries are doing like we usually do with these things.
Why is israel, a country in the middle east, a part of Eurovision to begin with? Very telling.
Because they are part of the European Broadcast Union (EBU), just like other non-European countries including Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Georgia. That said, just like Russia, their membership should be suspended.
I'm completely fine with non-European countries participating. Australia (the one with the kangaroos) isn't even an EBU member, but has been participating in the Eurovision for the last ten years and I think it's great to see the world grow closer like that.
Tunisia and Lebanon tried to participate in 1977 and 2005 respectively (the latter even selected Aline Lahoud as their representative), but their participations were ultimately thrown out the window once they found out that Israel was there.
Morocco actually did participate in 1980, when Israel left after literally winning the second year in a row. Morocco never returned, even after recognizing Israel, and even in the later years when Israel was absent.
Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and the Vatican City all can participate since they have broadcasters that are a part of the EBU, but they choose not to, mostly due to Israel participating, which half of these countries don't recognize. Also who would the Vatican even send to Eurovision, one of their Cardinals? Oh yeah, Kazakhstan, an EBU associate, even participated in Junior Eurovision, but never in the adult contest. They are in the running for a special invitation though, whether it actually happens is something only time will tell.
Is there a different Australia or were you just making it clear it wasn't a typo for Austria?
Australia, Armenia, and Morocco are all outside of Europe, and have completed too. Basically all European countries are eligible, plus those whose public broadcasters are part of the European Broadcasting Union.
It is filled with European colonists.
It very important to note that Israel is NOT part of Europe. It's in the Middle East, which is in ASIA.
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia. Heck, Australia.. If these are Europe, then so is Israel.
That said, I don't think we should exclude Israel from participating in Eurovision on a geographic basis. We should exclude them instead because they are an ethnofascist apartheid colony that's committing genocide on its population.
They were also very clearly rigging the votes in the last Eurovision by having an online campaign aimed at making people vote for them (advertising like that is forbidden by Eurovision rules)
Asiavision doesn't have the same ratings tho
I wish my country was that smart.
Same :(
They should really say that they will pull out of the show if israel and the zionists are allowed to sponsor the show through Moroccanoil and Estee Lauder.
THAT would hurt.
Countries are finally speaking up about this, I've been waiting for like, 2 years already.
Israel has undeniably brought the contest into disrepute twice in a row with them sending basically political entries with shady ad campaigns that made a select few voters disproportionately vote for Israel, causing them to spike up in the ranking (almost winning the 2025 contest; JJ is our savior), and yet the EBU just doesn't even care about this? And when Russia did the whole "let's take all of Ukraine" move, it took 10 countries to immediately speak up for them to get suspended. Ukraine won that year btw. Like... if the EBU are gonna keep saying the Eurovision Song Contest is "apolitical", then they have to accept the harsh reality that making your participants be countries immediately makes it otherwise. And this is not the exception, it's the norm. Both the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup have had similar disrepute incidents in the past, most notably with apartheid South Africa.
Either way, if more countries drop out due to Israel's continued participate, that could ultimately result in enough awareness for the EBU to finally kick them out for good. Otherwise, the only solution is the privatization of their broadcaster, which literally nobody wants.
Also the commentator in the Israeli live broadcast called every artist who had called the war a genocide an anti-Semite on live tv. Yeah if the EBU wants their contest to stay apolitical than they need to ban the Israeli broadcaster for the commentator’s toxic comments.
This year in 2025, they even made fun of the Armenians. I can't remember exactly what they said, but it was definitely something along the lines of "I can't believe we gave these guys a quarter in Jerusalem"
I have ultimately lost faith in these commentators. So much for being an "independent reporter", EBU. I mean yeah, they're facing the threat of privatization, but for now they're public and state-owned, so there's literally no excuses here.
And FIFA and the IOC are repeating the same errors in 2026 and 2028
I mentioned both their competitions in my comment.
Good. We need more of this. Israel needs to be isolated as the pariah state it is.
Israel should go back to sound as the bad idea it is.
Oh wow, AVROTROS (the broadcaster) finally found a spine? Where was this last year after the incident with Joost Klein?
I don't think they found a spine so much as they've seen the turning of the tide in the media re: Israel Palestine conflict, with several major media outlets running pieces agreeing that it's a genocide in the last month or so (BBC, Sky, Reuters, etc).
Aside - I also would like to understand what the turning point was with these media groups where they suddenly pivoted from "Israel are purely defending themselves" to "this is a campaign of genocide". Its like they hit some arbitrary number. 67,026 = self defence, 67,027 = oh gosh oh wow that's genocide.
It’s a proxy war against the USA.
They are the 6th biggest contributor, and Spain has considered doing similar and they're one of the big five. It might actually change something since money will matter the most, and enough countries are dropping out that they may not have enough contestants to run the semi-finals. There's rumours that Italy, Germany, and Britain may withdraw if Israel is kicked out though. Maybe we just won't have a contest next year, and after the bullshit of the past two years I'm completely fine with that.
Dear god, just take some sanctions like you did with Russia.
There are already sanctions (violent settlers got their asset frozen, and are forbidden to fly to many countries). Problem is that they take that as a badge of honor, and they don't have enough outside assets to really be a problem to them.
We are asking to sanctions israel not just settler. Isrsel built thise settlements to begin with, thrn they armed the settlers than they protected them when they attack westbanker
Hunting the peasants instead of their bosses is on the same level as the Eurovision blockade to me.
it's just going to be israel and sweden left at this rate
Also Germany because of our special responsibility towards genocidal rogue states or something like that
Am not a European but are other Middle Eastern countries allowed to compete? Why would Israel even be considered a part of this to begin with, it doesn’t quite make sense.
Israel (and most notably the Israeli company Moroccan Oil) is a big sponsor for the EBU, the organiser of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Only countries signed up with the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) can participate, and that’s not limited to European nations.
If I remember correctly, it's a European Broadcasting Union thing, and they're in cause there used to be a British colony there.
Israel is a European colony.
From what I've read, countries bordering the Mediterranean, including North-African countries, are allowed to compete, but they don't want to, mostly because they would have to broadcast the Israeli entry.
God promised them a song contest 3000 years ago, you heathens.
Is this the plasic straw of diplomacy?
I guess they should just do nothing then. Why is this always the immediate response whenever anyone begins to do the right thing?
They need to do their obligations under international law . Stop cooperating with the terrorist state doing it's final solution
https://slguardian.org/netherlands-signs-175-million-arms-deal-with-israeli-firm-elbit
https://paxforpeace.nl/news/military-cooperation-of-the-netherlands-with-israel-is-inappropriate
Would you say the same thing if during the holocust countries has some same weak response to a compaign of extermination?
Meanwhile
https://slguardian.org/netherlands-signs-175-million-arms-deal-with-israeli-firm-elbit
https://paxforpeace.nl/news/military-cooperation-of-the-netherlands-with-israel-is-inappropriate
Probably different decisionmakers, but also not having a unified stance on Israel is kinda showing them as weak.
Can't wait for the UK, Germany, and France Song Contest. I bet France still gives us nul points. /j
Good. Good. If enough countries retire we may have a chance to win.
I don't know where you're from, but with a statement like that I can tell it isn't Ireland or Sweden. Those guys have had their share.
Oh we did? Fucking nice! Many people didn't want to touch this, but I'm glad it went through anyway!
Okay, anyone got a map or list on this? Definitely curious on seeing who's still in and who's out, like that FightChatControl site
So that's how many members already?
-4-5?-Spain
-Ireland
-Slovenia
-Netherlands
-Iceland
Hope there will be more.
Add Iceland to the list too
Slovenia has been up to some good stuff recently, first they imposed an arms embargo on israel, now this. I'm proud of my little country
Didn't we say that we are not considering participation because organizer doesn't listen to us and not because of Israel? Anyway, waiting years for this realization is lame. Better late than never but still... Take note that many Slovene universities and other institutions still
merelymerrily collaborate with Israel, also we have bo problems hosting Israeli national sport teams and even use police to avoid protests and so on. And that arms embargo, Slovenia doesn't even know what transits through. We also don't want anything with lawsuits against genocide. Yes, it's a step or two in the right direction but far away from something big.Small country, big hearth?!
I feel ashamed that my country is not on this list.
Same, with even our ministry of the sports that said that "the Gaza operation is not as aggressive, not as bloody as the Russian invasion of Ukraine to justify banning Israel from the Olympics". WTF did you smoke?
As an Australian, same here.
That said its bemused me as to why we're even there.
it might still come to consider it, don't give up hope, yet.