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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

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)

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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.

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.

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.

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