The UEFA story is roughly the same, just slightly worse and Israel did not end up there by choice or some self-perception of European-ness.
> Israel participates in Eurovision because it's a member of the EBU
No, that is not the reason, being a member of EBU is neither a necessity nor sufficient reason for entry. Morocco is the only non-European EBU member to ever participate, they did it once in 1980, came in second to last (above Finland) with Italy the only country to give them points. They have not participated since probably because of poor cultural fit.
On the flip side, Australia has participated multiple times without being an EBU member. The only reason Australia participates is because of the shared European culture.
> The Arab states are boycotting Eurovision because of Israel's participation.
The Arab states have not participated even in the years which Israel is not competing, which was the case in 1980. Turkey has participated multiple times along side Israel, even in 2011 a year after the Gaza flotilla raid.
That said the Arab states may be boycotting because of Israel’s participation, but that does not disproof the fact that Israel participates because it fancies it self as European.
> The UEFA story is roughly the same
Perhaps, but Israel applied to and were granted memberships to the UEFA based on their European cultural identity. Greenland was not given the same break and had to apply to CONCACAF (but Kazakhstan was; curiously). When South Africa was kicked out of CAF they did not ask to join UEFA or OFC, instead had to wait until they ended Apartheid and then rejoin CAF.
This really is not a productive line of thinking, you know. As the Palestinians keep saying -- it make no difference to them where the settlers came from, or what their culture is.
If anything it seems to indicate an unusual fixation on (what you perceive as) the essential traits of Israelis. Which in turn feeds into the right-wing propaganda that all serious criticism of Israeli policy and/or Zionism is fundamentally dishonest and driven by you-know-what. It's like candy to them, in fact.
The only reason Australia participates is because of the shared European culture.
Then start a campaign to have Australia booted out of Eurovision. Go ahead and shout down their performers every time they take the stage, whatever you gotta do. But if that's the only substantive point you have against Israel's participation -- it's an awfully weak one. And again, suggests a weird and lopsided fixation with the topic.
[Morocco has] not participated since probably because of poor cultural fit.
Their music is infinitely better than almost anything that makes it to the perennial Schlockfest that is Eurovision, for starters. But we digress here.
That said, I don’t care if Australia participates in Eurovision, even though it is yucky to think of it being a product of European settler colonialism (plus their songs usually suck), the current day Australian culture and politics is kind of divorced from that history of horrors now. I do want Israel booted of Eurovision though, not because they are not European enough for me, but because they engage in gross human rights violations. A country doing that has no business participating in international cultural events.
> Their music is infinitely better than almost anything that makes it the perennial Schlockfest that is Eurovision
Ohh, I deffinetly agree. Eurovision would benefit tremendously if Morocco would participate. I advocated for Bashar Murad this year actually (but couldn’t vote since I don’t live in Iceland any more). Even Greenland could help make Eurovision infinity better, regrettably Eurovision is too much of a colonialfest to ever allow Greenland to participate except via Denmark or Iceland.
I did not watch Eurovision this year—the first time in my life—because of Israel’s participation. Despite the songs usually being very bad, I find the whole show to be enjoyable, ironically one of my favorite songs is Israel’s 1987 song. This year however, there was no joy to be found. And it pains me to say it, but I don’t think I will watch Eurovision ever again unless they start taking a firm stance against human rights abuses of participating countries.
I’m also not sure about the EBU rules, but I find it curious that Russia was prohibited from participating in Eurovision because of their government’s use of state media to spread disinformation, but at the same time, EBU does not issue the same suspension to Israel (especially now when Al Jazeera is banned).