Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part | Hacker News Reader

Ireland will not participate in Eurovision if Israel takes part

rte.ie

189 pointsa_paddy202 comments

Apparently there are also countries demanding the opposite and saying they'll withdraw if Israel is excluded, including Germany: https://eurovisionfun.com/en/2025/09/iceland-some-countries-... (not the best source IMHO, but I did see it casually mentioned in a BBC News piece as well)

Germany has gone from one extreme to other extreme

The German policy of more or less unconditional support for Israel is plain stupid. This policy exists because of the horrors that Germans have inflicted upon Jews but it now supports similar [1] horrors inflicted by Israelis upon Palestinians. I can not wrap my head around that. If anything, Germany should try to stop Israel with all available means to protect them from themselves. Germany should do the same as Ireland and so should everyone else.

[1] Feel free to mentally replace similar with any other word that you think more accurately compares the two scenarios.

It's frustrating because Israelis and Jews are distinct peoples. This unwavering support for Israel doesn't even necessarily help Jews.

The Ultra-Orthodox can't even join the IDF. The issue is that the US HR Bill passed which legally equated Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism, and the US control the narrative in the english-speaking world around the Genocide. It's Orwellian in the extreme.

https://www.thefire.org/news/combat-anti-semitism-house-bill...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/us-house-passes-cont...

conflating jews with israel is biggest anti semitic thing one can do

This statement betrays a deep lack of imagination about other things one could do against Jews. Killing them, for instance, or putting them in concentration camps are both far worse than any association you might choose to make with Israel.

right shouldve said one of the biggest poor wording

I would argue it doesn't, because both cases are examples of guilt by association. One is history, the other is manufactured by israel

It's very easy to wrap your head around - Germany is Israel's main arms supplier after the US.

Germany accounted for 30% of Israel's arms imports between 2019 and 2023. In 2023 it accounted for 47% of Israel's total imports of conventional arms.

Between October 2023 and May 2025, Germany greenlighted the delivery of weapons and military equipment worth €485m to Israel

They since stopped the export of weaponry 'used in gaza' but it's naive in the extreme to accept assurances from the incumbent Israeli government to the contrary.

https://news.sky.com/story/germany-is-one-of-israels-stronge...

N.B. Israel continues to illegally carry weapons through Irish airspace, and kindly refers our government agency to El Al's Legal department on inquiry.

https://www.ontheditch.com/israels-national-airline-departme...

That does not seem like nearly enough money to make a bad policy decision because of the money and that policy is probably much older than the arms deals.

> That does not seem like nearly enough money

Because that's not the reason (Israel primarily imports weaponry and munitions from the US and India [0]).

The issue is the other way around. A significant portion of Germany's ground AD and defensive systems are sourced from Israel- most notably the Arrow 3 missile shield [1] deal that recently went through. Germany is heavily dependent on Israeli cybersecurity companies as well [2]. Germany is also subsidizing Arrow 3 sales to Ukraine [3].

Protecting your nations citizens always trumps morality, and in Germany's case, it's become even more critical after what happened in Poland this week.

[0] - https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs17/import/isr/show...

[1] - https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/06/09/israel-...

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-s...

[3] - https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/israel-sells-missiles-to-ge...

Yeah, but Europeans countries never miss a chance to lecture other countries about morality.

Politicians will always politick, but they do not tend to be the ones who make policy in a parliamentary system like Germany of Ireland.

Ireland basically has no army, and is entirely dependent on the UK for it's defense. As such, their politicans are free to say whatever (as long as it is not against the UK) because it's not going to come back and bite them in the behind. That said, that's now changing as the UK is trying to renegotiate the deal [0][1]

[0] - https://www.thejournal.ie/british-ireland-defence-agreement-...

[1] - https://www.irishpost.com/news/britain-and-ireland-to-renew-...

The Irish strategy is to make the pubs too attractive for any attacker to bother with armed conflict. ;)

The Irish position should not be underestimated. It tends to be a bellweather for what others will align with in the future. Ireland tends to use it's soft power very effectively at the global table.

Also, Ireland knows a thing or two about what it is like to be oppressed

> The Irish position should not be underestimated. It tends to be a bellweather for what others will align with in the future

This really overstates Ireland's position in foreign policy studies. No one at Bruegel, ECFR, Institute Montaigne, GMFUS, and the 2-3 other major EU think tanks that are the de facto voice of European policy are taking Irish policy into account. Ireland lost any chance it had of being at the table when the Eurozone crisis happened. Even Spain and Italy have barely rebuilt their credibility.

> Ireland tends to use it's soft power very effectively at the global table

How? Ireland barely comes up in most conversations aside from using IDA Ireland as a model for attracting services FDI.

Citing the Eurozone crisis as if we were analogous on an economic or policy level to Spain/Italy/Greece is just farcical in the extreme. Given our population of ~5 Million we're probably punching above our capita to the largest extent of any EU member-state. Hell, even the Asylum laws governing Europe are named after us:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation

We are also the only EU country where the Constitution ordains a referendum to validate ratification of any amendments that result in a transfer of sovereignty to the European Union; such as the Nice Treaty which we can prevent from passing on an EU level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nice#The_Irish_refer...

Putting aside the multiple times we have held EU Council Presidencies, how about you take our two-year term on the UN Security Council from 2021 to 2022, where we got UN Security Council Resolution 2594 passed – the first ever Resolution on UN Peacekeeping transitions.

Since 1958, Ireland has maintained a constant presence on UN and UN-mandated peace support operations to the point where many English speakers in the South Lebanon do so with an Irish accent. 86 Irish soldiers have died in service of the UN since 1960.

We also have a particular legacy regarding the IDF and war crimes - Like in 1996 UN position 6-52, near Maroun al-Ras, a platoon of 33 Irish troops was surrounded and isolated from UN headquarters by a mechanised IDF unit. Or in May of this year when Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon came under fire from Israeli forces near a bombed out village at Yaroun

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-peacekeepers-in-lebanon-fire...

We have lost almost 50 troops in Lebanon alone. Approximately 50% of our casualties have been inflicted by Islamist resistance groups such as Hezbollah – the other 50% by the IDF and their paramilitary proxies in the area.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/15/un-pea...

UNIFIL and Irish peacekeepers were so effective that UNIFIL is disbanded as of next year

> but it now supports similar [1] horrors inflicted by Israelis upon Palestinians

I would say that Israel is historically worried about the fact that his enemies want it to make it disappear. There are many things to criticize from them but this is the basic premise.

Do you think that historical worry justifies the tens of thousands of children they are currently killing?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel...

It seems they no longer care if their actions make the general public sympathetic to this cause, which is rather troubling for a bystander.

I'd say the people that are historically and actively actually being disappeared are the Palestinians, the premise is that Israel since inception wants (edit: is) to eradicate Palestinians

If they wanted that, it would have happened already.

That's precisely why it's happening, unfortunately

But the solution to that is not making some other people disappear in order to make some room for Jews. And they have already stolen half of Palestine and turned it into their own state and that state is - despite its illegal origin - now internationally recognized and therefore unlikely to be undone. They just have to be satisfied with what they took and stop attempting to take the rest of Palestine, too.

Remember there are are radical nationalist / racist / xenophobic groups in germany / anywhere.

Such groups are so strong in Germany that Hitler used them to strenghten the power of his discourse.

Recognizing Israel / the Jews are the ones now doing Genocide would *in the sight of the extremist groups* prove their belief that Hitler was right / the Jews are the devil. (I repeat, in their regard, not mine)

Therefore, my opinion is that the official stance in Germany must be "historical responsability" mainly not for the sake of the Jews, but for the stability of the society.

Don't you think there's a risk that denying a genocide everyone can see with their own eyes will feed into antisemitic conspiracy theories?

Yes, they are alreading sharpening their forks and oiling their torches. I think officially recognizing it ("Jews are bad") will drive normal people to don't consider them (the extremists / nazi) conspiracy nuts anymore, because of a "they / we were right all the time" discourse.

I apologize for basically repeating myself. I just wanted to refer to the conspiracy theories you mentioned because calling them that is, ironically, constructive.

Officially recognizing the genocide is not the same as saying "Jews are bad".

You'd think those suffering genocide would do the one thing to stop it, namely releasing the hostages and ceasing their own officially chartered genocidal ambitions.

Can’t get rid of your jews if there is no place to move them to since Auschwitz is no longer an option.

Germany also felt guilty about the invasion of Russia. I understand this to be one of the reasons why Germany was keen to buy Russian guess, to make amends.

On the flip side Germany did a huge amount to bring solar power into large scale usage.

This is a very clear example of people who never live in Germany but do strong worded sentences in the internet.

Having lived in Germany a long time, I think you might want to read the country's biggest media conglomerate's stance on Israel; and how that shapes public opinion.

It's interesting as it causes a divide amongst EBU members for Eurovision - besides Ireland (in OP), Iceland ( https://www.ruv.is/english/2025-09-09-iceland-may-not-take-p... ) and Spain ( https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2025/09/11/spain-thr... ) have also stated their intention to boycott if Israel participates.

So this is interesting. Because Eurovision is of course just citizens, and punishing citizens for the actions of their state is considered racism. And Israel is hardly alone in having a conflict. The same could be said about the many universities.

So do we now get to refuse to hire Afghans because of the Taliban too? Or Turkish citizens? Much the same principle, after all. These countries are at war and purposefully attacking large population groups. Or is this yet another kind of "only Israeli" get this treatment rule?

Of course, in reality just about every muslim country I look up has conflicts with population groups in territory they claim. Morocco in Western Sahara. Algeria with the Tuareg (especially the non-muslim Tuareg). Tunisia is still in civil war and at war with it's own citizens. Libya has been caught driving black immigrants into the desert and abandoning them to die of thirst ... AND is at war with it's own citizens. Egypt and Egyptian Christians. Saudi Arabia is at war with it's own citizens ... Or you can go south, and well all know about Sudan. You can keep going until you arrive at Indonesia, even PNG.

And of course, what makes it truly bad: Palestine is at war with it's own citizens. They're at war with Palestinian Christians (near extinct) or Palestinian Jews, who the Palestinians have hunted to extinction ...

And plenty of non-Muslim countries do this. Russia (obviously, and not just Ukraine) for example, or China (the list is long. Nepal, Uyghurs, Mongols, ...). Myanmar. Thailand. Just about every even lightly authoritarian nation is at war with it's own citizens, either with groups of their own population, or just outright their own citizens (state vs anyone else).

And we haven't even mentioned the more dangerous conflicts and countries like North Korea, or Iran.

But of course, this only applies to Israel and Jews. Even that Palestinians do the same to their own population will not count.

In war, nothing changes until BOTH parties genuinly want peace. Obviously Palestinians (justified or not) do not want peace. So stopping the fighting ... just isn't the solution, it will simply restart.

So now it is justified to boycott muslims in general, and refuse to deal with them, because of what the states they belong to are doing? Glad we got this update.

None of Turkey, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are taking part in Eurovision.

I may be a radical, but I think everyone should be allowed to participate, and if a country doesn't want to participate, so be it. The organizer should not be deciding which country attends in, which doesn't. OK fine, North Korea we can leave out.

There is precedent, Russia is currently suspended, also for committing war crimes.

Other precedent was South Africa, where cultural boycott contributed to dismantling of the apartheid regime. This could also work for Israel.

Not to mention the fact that Ireland also has huge form in this area - having implemented a boycott of apartheid South Africa in 1987, becoming the first Western European state to do so. Ten young Dunnes Stores workers, aged between 17 and 24, refused to handle goods from apartheid South Africa because of how their government treated black people.

This ended up with a strike lasting two years and nine months - unimaginable in the context of today's retail environments.

https://mandate.ie/2024/07/the-day-10-workers-changed-the-wo...

The _word_ boycott (in its current meaning) also originates in Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott#The_word_boyco...

Russia was suspended because of the invasion. That would mean that Gaza should be banned from Eurovision (which I support).

In that case, Israel should've been banned years ago, when they started building settlements in the West Bank.

So, while, obviously, Russia is _actually_ suspended for invading Ukraine, officially they are suspended on a technicality.

Why single out North Korea?

All countries are equal but some counties are more equal than others?

Well, we can also leave North Korea out of the Eurovision Song Contest because it's not part of Europe.

Israel and Australia aren't part of Europe either.

Israel is currently committing a genocide in Palestine. It's like inviting the KKK or Nazi war criminals to board game night. Hard pass on anything including Israel until they stop the genocide and repay Palestine for the unspeakable horrors they inflicted and continue inflicting on them. Russia, another country headed by a war criminal, is also excluded.

Israel isn't committing genocide except in the minds of pro-palestine activists, many of whom refer to Hamas terrorism as "resistance" more than the more suitable description, to use your words (and the words of the UN incidently) "unspeakable horror".

Meanwhile, the ones who say they would commit genocide if given any chance at all, are the ones Israel is at war with.

> Israel isn't committing genocide except in the minds of pro-palestine activists, many of whom refer to Hamas terrorism as "resistance" more than the more suitable description

What do you make of Netanyahu himself in regards to Hamas support?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas

> In a cable leaked by WikiLeaks in 2010, Amos Yadlin, former general of the Israeli Air Force, said in 2007 that Israel would be "happy" if Hamas take over Gaza and regarded it as a positive step, so they could treat Gaza as a hostile state.[37][38]

> In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state.[11]

> In an interview with the Israeli Army Radio in August 2019, Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001, said that Netanyahu's main strategy is to keep Hamas "alive and kicking" in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority, even at the expense of "abandoning the citizens [of the south]."[48]

> Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."[49] At a Likud party conference in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu said:

> "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."[50][51]

> Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview:[54]

> “Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.”[55]

> Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawmaker and finance minister under Netanyahu Government, called the Palestinian Authority a "burden" and Hamas an "asset".[56][57]

> Israel isn't committing genocide

Israel is committing genocide though.

> Israel isn't committing genocide except in the minds of pro-palestine activists

Do you think this Israeli PM is a pro-Palestine activist? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMVLt_ncn7E

Can you name one other genocide in history where the genociders supply millions of tonnes of aid to those they're genociding?

Protests in Israel would be maxed out if Israel were committing actual genocide. Israelis are good people, they wouldn't stand around while their defence force committed genocide. They don't want Hamas regrouping into Hamas 2.0, and who can blame them.

International Law experts can't go to their filing cabinets and pull out the file on "similar wars" to what is happening.

"Israel isn't doing it right"... says every armchair "free palestine" advocate without actually saying how they should do it.

Let Israel finish it, THEN if they don't leave and help rebuild, with Palestinians under new governance of their own (helped by international peace keepers or whatever) then hold Israel to account, but not before during the war, that's just flotilla levels of useless.

By "it" do you mean the genocide, let them finish it? Let them forcibly displace the population to the "humanitarian city" camp, or push them beyond the border, then we can ask questions.

Ignoring the growing list of humanitarian/aid organisations and genocide scholars that have asserted that a genocide is taking place, how would you categorize Israel's actions against the civilian population of Gaza? The forced displacement of virtually the entire population, the restrictions on food and supplies entering the area, the siege by land, sea and air. Open up Google Earth and compare September 2023 to December 2024, to witness the destruction, in whole or in part, of a people.

> "genocide scholars"

Laughable role, given no access to the place you claim is a genocide, and that's an active war zone with terrorists running around delaying the inevitable and prolonging the suffering.

  1. Look at map of Gaza
  2. Look at casualty stats, incident reports and statements released from the Hamas media office. (The same information cited by international media)
  3. Look at carefully staged photos from journalists in Gaza who have contracts with Reuters but are nevertheless under Hamas who have strict control over the media landscape in Gaza and shape the narrative. 
  4. Declare "genocide".

> restrictions on food and supplies entering the area

Yes, and people are suffering. We all know it and wish it wasn't so. But Israel can't just go home and hide in their bomb shelters. Millions of tonnes of aid including food, medical supplies, shelters, water and other resources HAVE made it through in thousands of trucks. Some of which gets looted, or blocked by hostile groups who seize the trucks.

> Laughable role, given no access to the place you claim is a genocide, and that's an active war zone with terrorists running around delaying the inevitable and prolonging the suffering.

It's useless to debate genocide apologists as facts mean nothing to them, so I am not gonna try to debate your obvious lies and twisting of the truth.

Netanyahu will be tried for his war crimes and genocide in the Hague and will rot in prison or will die of old age. History will paint Israel's genocide of Palestinian people the same way the Nazis went down in history for doing the Holocaust.

Here is a video of Israel bombing a hospital and bombing it again when crews and journalists went to help. Nothing more is needed to be said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cWLFvMcys0

Stop the genocide. Stop genocide apologizing.

> "I am not gonna try to debate..."

Clearly. A disturbing trend of late.

> Clearly. A disturbing trend of late.

I am sure many folks tried to debate with the Nazis on the big podium of ideas. It's useless to debate with the folks who did the Holocaust.

It's useless to debate with these guys as well:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/israeli-ex-com...

It's clear what Israel stands for, it's clear what they are doing is a genocide. The genocide apologists will just deflect and bicker about whether 11 out of the 12 points that constitute a genocide are enough to actually call it as such. And I am not interested in that.

Universities condemn the genocide: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/13/universities-a...

Even Ursula is worried about her position and wants to distance herself from the genociders from Israel:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/10/ursula-von-der...

Hell, even China, a country famous for human rights violations, is disgusted by Israel and denounced them publicly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCLkJvsjuqU

The world is, sadly too late, waking up to the genocide that happened just in front of their eyes and is frantically trying to cut off ties with the genocidal Israeli terrorist state. Israel acts like a rabid dog, attacking Quatar, Iran, Palestine, Tunisia, Quatar, Yemen. Terrorist genocider state.

Either way, war criminal Netanyahu has a reserved spot in the Hague and even prominent figures in the US neo-fascist fronts like Charlie Kirk, who was much a white supremacist as he was an Israeli genocide apologist, hasn't posted videos on youtube in defense of Israel as of late.

I know my words sound harsh, but I feel they are necessary to be written. I greet you with an old song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CI3lhyNKfo that is very catchy.

> "I know my words sound harsh"

Your words sound unhinged. Like your anti-fascist label maker is unrolling a mini manifesto of regurgitated anti-Israel nuggets. You're harbouring an array of ideologies, all intersecting and spilling on the page. A diatribe of disturbance.

Meanwhile, my approach is grounded in a singular idea: That Hamas are the enemy in a war. It's a serious problem. Wars are like that.

Not just the enemy of Israel, but of any civilisation that values civil liberties without the punishing cloud of oppressive fundamentalism and stone-age brutality looming over every aspect of life.

Qatar is useless. After 2 years of "negotiating", a few drip-fed hostages including dead ones. Israel released more Palestinian prisoners than there are hostages. What a disgrace that hostages still remain in captivity. A disgrace that Qatar "hosts" the Hamas leaders, and that the Iranian regime funds the whole lot.

An unforgivable situation. Israel is responding to the threat. Obviously the eventual goal is peace. I won't click your links thanks anyway.

> That Hamas are the enemy in a war. It's a serious problem. Wars are like that.

The 20k children Israel murdered are also Hamas, right? Hitler also thought the same about the Jewish children he murdered during the Holocaust. War crimes are war crimes, genocide is genocide.

> A disgrace that Qatar "hosts" the Hamas leaders, and that the Iranian regime funds the whole lot.

The irony is that wanted war criminal Netanyahu himself can't be "hosted" in the most of the free world, cause there is a warrant for his arrest.

> Meanwhile, my approach is grounded in a singular idea: That Hamas are the enemy in a war. It's a serious problem. Wars are like that.

And my approach is grounded on the singular idea: Israel is doing a genocide and genocide is bad.

What exactly are the criteria for participation.

Being in Europe is not one of them - Israel is not in Europe, nor a few others, and Australia is literally as far away as you can get from Europe.

Be an EBU member, technically even the US can participate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union

US is an associate member, but so is Australia so you are right.

India, China, and Brazil are associate members too so they could all take part, potentially.

Participation is based on membership of the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of public service media broadcasters.

A thing that's maybe not obvious to Americans, and maybe even Brits is that "Public Service Broadcaster" is a category based on why it was OK for this to broadcast on the radio frequency, rather than somehow related to how it's funded.

So, NBC etc. in the US are Public Service Broadcasters, whereas a local not-for-profit that has laid their own coax in your city is not a PSB.

In the UK ITV is a PSB, as well as the BBC (which you probably think of) and Channel 4 (which is owned by the state) but if your local school media team uploads local affairs videos to Youtube that's not a PSB.

The idea is there's finite radio bandwidth, the government has decided it gets to decide who uses that bandwidth and how, and so a PSB is an entity which got licensed to use some of that finite space to do something approved. Government policies might require or forbid certain programming, for example maybe you can't advertise cigarettes or you can't swear, but you must have a news show every weekday evening.

The EBU exists because of this same bandwidth issue. Radio doesn't care about politics, so even if adjacent country A and country B hate each other and have closed their borders, the radio waves from A propagate to B and vice versa. So radio "regions" exist which try to duck the politics as much as possible to focus on practicalities. That they don't fully duck politics is how we end up with Israel in Europe but not its immediate neighbours...

Meanwhile Irish President just recently met with Qatar sheikh and wished him good health and discussed cooperation and investments. Thats in full knowledge that they have orchestrated kidnapping of civilians, indiscriminate rocket bombings and other crimes.

So trading with terrorist bankers and protectors, giving them money and influence is just business as usual. While when a dozen citizen of the victim country are visiting EU it's a haram and no no. Hypocrites and terrorist friends, that's who they are.

Trump visited Qatar this year in May (Irish president 2 months ago). He also discussed cooperation and investment. Your arguments is flawed. Most likely you're mistaking Qatar for some other country.

"The White House announced that the US and Qatar had inked deals worth at least $1.2 trillion, including a major transaction which would see Qatar Airways buy 210 aircraft from the US company Boeing."

So US president also shook hand of this diabolical emir of Qatar :)

The parent poster is implying that Qatar is funding / helping Hamas, and by proxy kidnaps / rocket bombs civilians etc.

Reality is more complex then that. Qatar has been sending millions to Gaza (and transitively to Hamas) for years. Important point is that Israel was aware of it and even approved of it - more details here:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-fu...

The parent really should be attacking the US (of which Qatar is "a major non-NATO ally") and Israel ("Netanyahu continued the cash flow to Hamas, despite concerns raised from within his own government"). I don't see any reason to be so aggressive towards Ireland of all the stakeholders.

Eurovision is that cultural thing that I hear about but I just don't get. It probably is as simple as I think it is, but it gets attention that makes me think it is more important and I must be missing something.

It's like the Olympics or World Cup but for cheesy pop music.

The Olympics kinda fits my perception, very important at the moment and folks really get into it... but everyone moves on a week later.

It's a hyper-kitsch activity that transcends age and cultural boundaries. In Ireland in particular it's a huge event in the LGBTQ+ calendar - bizarrely enough in large part to Dana International, a pioneer of Israel's LGBTQ+ community who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998.

It's not as huge as the coverage of it makes it seem, I think. But many Europeans grew up with it. It was something you'd watch with the whole family, and you have some great laughs at how ridiculous it all is.

But I have to say that, nearing 40, I no longer care about it. Without the family around to watch it, it's just another bit of TV I ignore. None of the people I know, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, care either.

Still, the media coverage seems to do a lot of heavy lifting to make it seem popular.

It is exactly as simple as you think it is, but also not, as all cultural influences on politics through history has shown. Everything from the 1936 Berlin Olympics to CIA funding Jackson Pollock (and Kooning, Rothko, etc) to Metallica playing in Moscow in 1991.

Though competing with the deluge of internet media, Eurovision probably has a lot less impact.

> consider Israel’s presence essential.

Why, why is it essential?

It adds to drama. This year Israel had a rather weak song and got very few votes from the jury. But then it almost won thanks to the majority of votes from text messages. Pure magic.

What's more amusing is that they strategically came in second place after that bizarre voting. Apparently if they had come first, the final next year would have to be in Tel Aviv as per the rules. Now that would be drama. That seemingly was a bridge too far even for them.

A few countries, including Ireland, called into question the text voting results for Israel last year. Not sure what the result of that investigation was.

Like many such articles surrounding any hint of negativity and Israel, this one is inevitably flagged.

What are you talking about? There were multiple anti-Israeli articles on main and in top (150+ votes) [1-7], including Al Jazeera, funded by same people who fund Hamas. I can't remember any single pro-Israeli article that wasn't flagged to death.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45094165

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44576782

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44496391

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44402896

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467375

[7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616550

I'm talking about exactly what I said. The existence of any other articles (as far back as 2023...) that aren't flagged to death doesn't change that.

Well clearly this one isn't flagged. Hope you update your priors

This thread was in fact flagged for quite some time, so...

Even after being manually unflagged following user requests, the false flag will have impacted its rank in the HN algorithm.

For the record, OP is entirely correct to assert that anti Israel stuff is always quickly flagged here. I've seen it many, many many times. Very often it isn't ever unflagged, despite being extremely relevant to this crowd.

My priors inspired me to look if strenuously denying live-streamed genocide and repeating bad Hasbara are regular pastimes from your account. It gave me no joy to see I was correct.

Iceland made a similar—albeit a bit more vague—announcement, and as an Icelander and an ex-Eurovision fan, I have to say this is far too little and far too late. If this boycott would have been announced 2 years ago, I would have celebrated, and maybe it could have had an impact, but at this point a handful of countries announcing boycotts is not gonna have any meaningful impact. In my opinion the head of the respective radios need to apologies for not acting sooner, and they not only need to boycott, but actively try to prevent Eurovision from being held this next year if Israel is allowed to participate. A good start would be to sue the EBU, or to hold an alternative competition.

It’s funny how fast these kinda discussions dissapear from the front page, anyone know if there are any statistics on this?

Simple, they are basically spam for this platform.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit

[...]

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Conservatives are champions of free speech unless it concerns Palestine and Israel. In this case any vague rule is good to supress it and impose full censorship.

it's a tale as old as time for people to believe the things they're in support of get censored while the things they dislike are over-represented. HN is genuinely relatively divisive on basically any issue, as humans we tend to be a bit blind to these things though.

It's not funny when HN become the next social network with bullshit arguments.

its some of that but the ratio is much better than anywhere else i know of

Eurovision - we shall not miss you :).

Good, Israel must be boycotted.

Why?

Sigh...

Antisemitism

give up bro, no one buy this anymore.

Do you consider genocide a bad thing?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel...

Because the goal of the Zionists has always been to conquer all of Palestine and the State of Israel has been following those foot steps since day one. From the river to the sea. This has been declared illegal under international law more than half a century ago but Israel does not care about the law. Therefore Israel should be forced to comply, which means boycotts and sanctions or military force. And we should probably try boycotts and sanctions first before we send tanks. Which is unlikely to happen any time soon anyway as that would mean opposing the USA and we have seen in recent history what happens to people and countries supporting the Palestinians.

To the dead comment Israel agreed to the UN partition in 1947, and then Arabs started a war to kill all the Jews there.

You do not even understand what the UN general assembly does, it expresses majority opinions, it does not make legally binding decisions. That means the UN partition plan is only what a majority considered the best solution, not a legal decisions to divide Palestine. And the Palestinians vehemently opposed that solution and later violently its implementation.

And should one really be surprised that the Arab neighbors attacked Israel? The Jews had just occupied half of the Palestinian land, violently displaced hundred thousands of Palestinians, and established their own state on Palestinian land.

It's a simple question in my eyes.

Do people indigenous to a land have the right to defend their lives and property from a foreign, occupying force with violence, if necessary?

It's a shame that one's answer to this question is entirely dependent upon a bronze-age claim.

I am glad to see this news and I hope more countries join in. Their efforts to sneak in pro-genocidal messaging through song lyrics, the buying of YouTube ads in most European countries to get as many votes as possible, and the ongoing attempts by EBU to silence all voices that are critical of their efforts to exterminate the people whose land they're occupying; it all makes me disgusted to see countries like Germany coming out with the opposite announcement of boycotting ESC if Israel won't be able to participate. Of course, EBU will not disqualify Israel from Eurovision, and the reason is obvious for anyone who has checked the list of their sponsors.

its a rich mans world...

I didn't watch Israel's song. I didn't watch any youtube ads (thanks adblock), yet I spent 20 euros on Israel to stop the shameful anti Israel discourse.

I'm genuinely interested in hearing what you consider shameful about the current discourse about Israel?

If it's not evident I can't do much. The constant outpour of media content that depicts Israel as cruel and unfair despite there being no real story. The constant conflation of Israel with antisemitic stereotypes. The denial of Israel's right to exist in both subtle and gross ways.

European left isn't giving any path to Israel to get respect, they will attack Israel no matter what they do.

The sooner you stop seeing this as a "right vs left" debate and start seeing it as a human catastrophe, the sooner you will start to understand why some people take issue in what Israel is currently doing.

> there being no real story.

Ok, dude. I cannot educate you if you actively refuse to follow the news.

depicts Israel as cruel and unfair despite there being no real story

No real story like shooting an unarmed civilian, waiting for relatives to come to recover the body, then shooting them too?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/09/the-gaza-famil...

This is only bad if you value Palestinians as people. Occasionally the media does that, despite incentives to the contrary.

What conflation of Israel with antisemitic stereotypes? Is murdering 10's of thousands of women and children an antisemitic stereotype? Does expressing that Palestinian people are entitled to civil/human rights and self-determination some how deny Israel's right to exist?

In media, "Israel" refers to the current government of Israel and the actions that are done on its behalf. The evidences of war crimes are countless and irrefutable.

Nobody with half a brain conflates Israel's government with Judaism or with the Israeli people, ... but Israel's intelligence services have for a long time had the tactic to influence people to conflate them so as to be able to deflect criticism against its state as being anti-semitism — and they have been quite successful at that.

Similarly, antisemitic groups have taken advantage of the worldwide movement against what Israel is doing in Gaza and sometimes managed to insert themselves and their message among legitimate protests. For instance, this summer an MP in my country had retweeted an image containing symbolism that she didn't understand — which caused her party to (over)react and exclude her.

I am sure that there is a lot of misleading propaganda going left and right within Israel as well.

It is important to be careful and identify things for what they are.

Yet, you've mentioned in your other comment that the festival is garbage... Pathetic. But not surprising from genocide supporters.

>>hope more countries join in

By the looks of it, besides Ireland (in OP), Iceland ( https://www.ruv.is/english/2025-09-09-iceland-may-not-take-p... ) and Spain ( https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2025/09/11/spain-thr... ) have also stated their intention to boycott.

> efforts to exterminate the people whose land they're occupying

Just because activists say a thing doesn't make it true. You should make more objective factual claims instead of ambiguously defined or made up ones.

Amnesty and The International Association of Genocide Scholars both called it a genocide. The Un has announced that it's a human made famine. And the ICJ put an arrest Warren against the occupations leader.

But sure all of them are wrong and you are right.

Let's not forget Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

But many Israel supporters live in a reality distortion field where they're eternal victims and therefore can do no wrong. No amount of well documented war crimes or obvious lies from the Israeli government will make a dent, because Palestinian lives have exactly zero value to them.

Honestly, they could be. Have you read those sources? Here's something I found from Amnesty International.

6.1.1 DIRECT ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS OR INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS It lists 15 cases of air strikes which it uses to support its claim of killing/harming members of a group which is part of the definition of genocide. However, all/nearly all of them say "Amnesty International did not find any evidence of a military objective.". So it seems possible Amnesty just doesn't know the secret military information and Israel didn't disclose it to them. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Do you believe there can't possibly have been any military objectives that make those air strikes legitimate?

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/8668/2024/en/

If a state attacks, just for example, civilian hospitals (which typically do not contain valid military targets) then, in my view, the burden of proof lies on the attacking state.

Leaving aside, of course, the fact that attacking a civilian hospital, even one that has some military targets in it (say wounded combatants), would also certainly mean killing or injuring many invalid targets, and at that point you should really provide not just evidence of a military target but also evidence that you couldn't attack the target in any other way and that the target is valuable enough to justify the deaths of innocent people.

Which Israel has not done, and really, can't do. Because there really aren't many targets worth bombing a hospital for.

Well yea if there was a trial. But now it's just a trial by media and guilty until proven innocent. That's not a good way to reach the correct conclusion.

Hamas had bases in hospitals. Not just wounded fighters being treated. They stored weapons and housed fighters in them. They also built underground bases directly underneath hospital buildings. They specifically chose hospitals because they thought that would protect them from being attacked but it does make those hospitals a legitimate target.

Do you mean the claim that there was a command center under al-Shifa hospital? That was debunked over 18 months ago by multiple sources. None of the attacks on hospitals have been justifiable under the Geneva Conventions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67453105 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/17/idf-evidence-s...

Those aren't debunkings, they're "Israel hasn't convinced us yet."s.

> So it seems possible Amnesty just doesn't know the secret military information and Israel didn't disclose it to them. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Do you believe there can't possibly have been any military objectives that make those air strikes legitimate?

We don't know for sure that Hind Rajab wasn't planning attacks when she was supposed to be learning the alphabet either.

Maybe she was leading a Hamas cell with a crayon, but the intelligence is too crucial to share!

This style of argument is absurd.

One person being killed isn't a genocide or extermination.

No killing one person is not genocide, it's a murder.

Killing 10,000's of women and children from a specific ethnic group, razing a significant percentage of buildings to the ground and forcibly displacing almost 2 million people while using starvation as a weapon of war, that's genocide.

What else could they have done?

Sure, here's an objective factual claim.

Over 65000 people were killed by the Israeli "Defense" Forces in Gaza since October 7th. 31% of them were children.

> Over 65000 people were killed by the Israeli "Defense" Forces in Gaza since October 7th. 31% of them were children

When “roughly half” of Gaza’s population “are under the age of 18,” your statistic actually describes discretion [1]. As for total kills, the data I’ve seen on CCRs put the IDF’s actions in the precedents range of guerrilla wars.

The way the IDF is conducting the war is, unfortunately, normal. What is not normal is the restriction of food, detention conditions and Netanyahu joining the Russia/China/Turkey club (along with Trump) on throwing out international law.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206897328/half-of-gazas-popu...

Thank you. That's much more constructive and you can see from another reply that people are now able to evaluate and challenge them because they're claims of fact.

There's plenty of evidence that fact is true, it's not even worth discussing at this point

For those of us who dabble in history, it's not far fetched to see why the Irish people isn't sympathetic towards an occupying force.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/14/1233395830/ireland-pro-palest...

What is so surprising to us who know history is that the Irish are supporting the colonizers. Jews are in their homeland. It's the Arabs who are colonizers.

There are 38 million Americans who identify as Irish. Is America the Irish homeland? No, it's Ireland.

To those who say Jews are colonizers: where is the Jewish homeland?

I've heard people say Poland, where Auschwitz is, thus revealing their true colors.

> What is so surprising to us who know history is that the Irish are supporting the colonizers. Jews are in their homeland. It's the Arabs who are colonizers.

You are being dishonest or severely brainwashed.

Ethnic groups doesn't have homelands, people born under a nation state [2] have homelands.

Israel was founded in 1948. You already know this.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel_(1948%E2%80%...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state

By that logic where is the Christian homeland? Jesus was born in Bethlehem, does that give all Christians a right to displace the people who live there?

Similarly the Irish are famous for being ethnically a Celtic people. The Celts originated in Hallstatt, Austria, so does that entitle any Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scot or Welsh person to turn up and settle on the shores of the Hallstätter See?

All humans trace their origins back to Mesopotamia, can we all claim some land in Iraq too?

Maybe that's why Bush invaded Iraq, he just wanted the land of his ancestors

And yesterday the Munich Philharmonic was uninvited from an event in Brussel, because their conductor is from Israel.

It's antisemitism, plain and simple.

For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government.

Compare to the countless global conflicts we have seen in the last decades, including the reactions and overreactions and including wars and military force and ask yourself, why Israel is singled out and moreover why individual jews that are living abroad are singled out.

We ban Russian athletes because Russia is waging a war on Ukraine and the Russian head of state is a wanted war criminal.

Israel should be double banned then because they are doing a proven genocide on the Palestinian population and their head of state is also a wanted war criminal.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_a...

It's like inviting Hitler supporters to a garden party.

> For instance, nobody would ban a US pop star from an international event just because many disagree with the current policies of the US government.

If and while the US conduct a new genocide on a population (their previous one to the native American population is too far in history to judge the current US populace), I hope we don't invite their pop stars to sing for us.

There's nothing proven about the genocide libel. That BBC article is about an association (IAGS) where anyone with $30 can join, whether they are a scholar or not. Twitter/X had a fun time with that over the last week, signing up as genocide scholars under ridiculous names. Furthermore IAGS has around 500 members, and only 129 of them voted with 86% of those supporting the resolution.

Here's 514 scholars calling for IAGS to retract: https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/

“Genocide is the gravest offense known to humankind; to dilute its legal standards for ideological ends is a form of moral violence. It dishonors the memory of past victims, misleads the public about present atrocities, and obstructs efforts to avert future ones,” the Friday statement said.

Stop bombing childrens that did nothing while promoting real estate on the rubles and we'll stop the libel.

I am not very interested in debating with a genocide apologist the finer points whether bombing hospitals, starving children and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population has to be approved as genocide by 98% or 99% of experts.

There are people up to this very day who deny the Holocaust happened as well and call it a libel. Hitler was stopped regardless, the same will happen to the genocider Netanyahu. Its "Never again", not "Again, but this time we are doing it to others".

Israel is doing a genocide.

The same munich philharmonic that fired their last conductor because of his unwillingness to denounce putin? Very interesting development!

> because their conductor is from Israel

I believe the issue is not that he is "from israel" but that he is currently the music director of the israeli philharmonic orchestra.

Anti-sionisme*

Ireland was also the only country to send official condolences to Germany after hitler died. Nothing new under the sun.

That was probably de Valera’s worst judgement call and he was strongly advised against it at the time. Still, the actual history is a lot more nuanced than that. There’s no evidence that de Valera was anti-Semitic. His 1937 constitution for the Irish state specifically recognised “Jewish Congregations” in its Article 44 (Religion). While claiming in public to be neutral during the Second World War, the Irish state imprisoned Axis pilots who crashed in Ireland but downed Allied pilots were quietly repatriated.

For more details: https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2025/05/02/de-valeras-con...

Sour grapes after having Israel crush them in the competition.

yes, last year Ireland's entry was truly awful. They should definitely leave because their music is bad.

Ultimately I think it comes down to not having a strong local competition. Countries that don't have local competitions with similar rule sets should be expected to perform badly.

Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes, as well as far fewer plays on Spotify ahead of voting. Belgium counted +10% votes with -50% viewers (they didn't qualify). Spain, The Netherlands and Ireland also registering similar concerns.

The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily.

I'm not defending Ireland's performance but Israel's was objectively mediocre too. Eurovision voting is historically biased but it was weird last year.

> Weren't there bizarre voting irregularities? A massive discrepancy between judge votes and public votes,

That's almost always the case. And both groups were agreed that Ireland wasn't very good :P

> The insinuation being clear that Jewish diaspora were encouraged to vote heavily.

Did you just complain that people voted? Seriously?

> Did you just complain that people voted?

No, several national broadcasters did.

Ireland won the real Eurovision Song Contest in 1992, 1993 and 1994, and had the costly obligation of hosting it in 1993, 1994 and 1995. We have so little interest in winning it, that the single most famous comedy show in Irish history - our Fawlty Towers equivalent - apes our desire to lose the competition to relieve ourselves of the financial burden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_for_Europe_(Father_Ted)

They won back when countries were required to sing in their local language. When that was lifted, they never recovered.

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