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Israel’s Eden Golan Advances to Eurovision Finals Despite Thousands of Anti-Israel Protesters in Sweden
Eden Golan performing “Hurricane” for Israel at the second semi-final for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest at Malmo Arena on May 9, 2024. Photo: Corinne Cumming/EBU
Israeli singer Eden Golan on Thursday secured a spot in the finals of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest taking place in Malmö, Sweden, after more than 5,000 people protested earlier in the day about Israel’s participation in the competition.
Golan, 20, competed in Thursday’s second semi-final with a modified song, titled Hurricane. The original version was titled October Rain and referenced the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in southern Israel. However, it was disqualified by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest, for breaking rules on political neutrality. Israel was forced to change the song’s title and lyrics if it wanted to participate in the contest.
Twenty-six contestants will compete in Saturday’s Eurovision finals. After Swedish singer Loreen won the competition last year with the song Tattoo, Sweden was given hosting duties for this year’s competition and automatically guaranteed a place in the Eurovision finals along with France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, which make the largest financial contributions to the song contest. The remaining 20 countries qualified for the finals after competing in the semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday.
On Thursday, before Golan performed, roughly 5,000-6,000 anti-Israel demonstrators took to the streets in Malmö, and outside the singer’s hotel room, to protest Israel’s inclusion in the competition and the Jewish state’s ongoing military campaign targeting Hamas terrorists controlling the Gaza Strip. They changed “free, free Palestine” and some demonstrators held banners that read, “Welcome to Genocide song contest” and “stop using Eurovision to whitewash Israeli crimes.”
Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg was among the protesters and wore a keffiyeh draped across her shoulders. “It is outrageous that Israel is allowed to participate,” she said. “We cannot remain silent during a genocide.”
Golan, who reportedly received death threats for competing in the Eurovision, was ordered by Israel’s national security agency Shin Bet to stay in her hotel room during the anti-Israel demonstrations, except to attend her performances.
At a press conference after the semi-finals for those who were advancing to the next round, Polish journalist Szymon Stellmaszyk insinuated that Golan put others in danger by participating in the competition. Golan was visibly taken aback by the comment and told by the host of the press conference that she did not need to respond, but Dutch singer Joost Klein, who was sitting next to Golan on stage, interrupted and said, “Why not?” Golan ultimately chose to answer Stellmaszyk and said, “I think we’re all here for one reason and one reason only. And the EBU is taking all safety precautions to make this a safe and united place for everyone.” Greece’s representative in the Eurovision, Marina Satti, was later criticized on social media for her “immature” behavior on stage while Golan was speaking at the press conference.
The EBU more than once defended its decision to allow Israel to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest this year, explaining last week that the Eurovision is “a non-political music event” and “not a contest between governments.” The EBU also condemned the social media abuse and harassment that Eurovision contestants have faced for not pulling out of the competition as a way to boycott Israel’s participation. Anti-Israel activists unsuccessfully attempted for several months to convince artists to withdraw from the song contest.
At Tuesday’s semi-final, Eric Saade, whose father is Palestinian and from Lebanon, wore a keffiyeh around his wrist while performing his 2011 Eurovision entry Popular. The keffiyeh, a headscarf traditionally worn by Palestinians, has become known as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinian opposition to Israel. The EBU later said Saade compromised “the non-political nature of the event.”
Ireland’s entry, Bambie Thug, was also told to remove makeup from their face and legs that spelled out “ceasefire” and “freedom for Palestine” in a medieval Celtic script, according to The Irish Times.
An audience member who waved a Palestinian flag while Golan performed in the semi-finals on Thursday was removed from Malmö Arena by security.
Another Eurovision contestant, Finish singer Käärijä, received thousands of hateful comments after a video was posted online of him dancing with Golan to the point where he then took to his Instagram Story on Wednesday to explain his appearance with the Israeli singer.
A message that Käärijä wrote on his Instagram Story after receiving hate messages for dancing with Eden Golan. Photo: Screenshot
Golan was booed by audience members during her dress rehearsal on Wednesday and shortly afterward, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message in support of the singer.
“You’re competing not just in the Eurovision in a proud and very impressive manner, but you are competing successfully in the face of an ugly wave of antisemitism — and you are standing up to it and representing the State of Israel with huge honor,” he said.
In the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Israel’s representative, Noa Kirel, came in third place.
Watch Golan’s performance of Hurricane in the Eurovision semi-finals below.
עדן בביצוע בלתי נשכח pic.twitter.com/KabXoC1oHo
— כאן (@kann) May 9, 2024
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Rubio Condemns Mass Killings of Alawites in Syria, Says US Stands With Country’s Minority Communities

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday denounced the mass killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians from the Alawite minority group, in Syria, calling on the newly installed Syrian government to hold the perpetrators “accountable” for the massacres.
“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
In a series of clashes beginning on Thursday, fighters allied with the new Syrian government carried out mass executions of Alawite Muslim civilians in the coastal towns of Latakia and Tartus. According to Syria’s interior ministry, the pro-government fighters conducted “sweeping operations” in the towns to dismantle the remaining “remnants” of the regime of former President Bashaar al-Assad, targeting primarily adult men.
According to Syrian officials, the fighting started when a group of Alawite fighters loyal to Assad killed their forces in a premeditated attack.
The ensuing mass killing of Alawites, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the Syrian population, highlights growing concerns over the safety of minority groups in the country.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Sharaa decried the massacres, claiming they undermined his efforts to unite the country and vowing to seek retribution for the violence.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” Sharaa told Reuters. “We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us.”
In late January, Sharaa became Syria’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose decades-long Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz denounced the Syrian president as a “terrorist” who “switched his robe for a suit and presented a moderate face.”
“Now he’s taken off the mask and exposed his true face: A jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population,” Katz said in a statement. “Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria.”
Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Syria’s new government has called for Israel to withdraw its forces.
Alawite leaders in Syria have also issued a statement to Israel, calling on the Jewish state to deploy forces in the country to protect its minority civilians.
“Following the fall of Assad’s regime, and after the massacres that took place in Alawite areas against our people, we call on the Israeli government to provide protection, assistance, and support,” the leaders wrote, according to i24 News.
The leaders lamented that “the world is silent about the massacres happening in Syria” and that if the Jewish state offered help, the Alawite Muslims “will be your most loyal and good friends.”
The post Rubio Condemns Mass Killings of Alawites in Syria, Says US Stands With Country’s Minority Communities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Inflection Point’: UCLA Announces Initiative to Combat Antisemitism

Anti-Israel protesters set up camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2024. Photo: Alberto Sibaja via Reuters Connect.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) announced on Monday an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism,” a move that follows a series of incidents which have fueled allegations that the campus has become a hub of anti-Jewish discrimination.
“With honest reflection, it is clear that while we have made progress in addressing antisemitism, we have more to do in our shared goal of eradicating it in its entirety,” UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a statement. “Through this initiative, UCLA will implement recommendations of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.”
He continued, “These recommendations include: enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, assuring enforcement of current and new laws and polices, and cooperating with stakeholders.”
“This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university,” Frenk concluded.
The Initiative to Combat Antisemitism is the second stage of a process begun by UCLA when it created an antisemitism task force in February 2024. Commissioned to study the problem and issue recommendations, the task force last year issued a report which noted, among other things, that two-thirds of Jewish UCLA students believe that antisemitism on the campus “is a problem or a serious problem,” and a higher share of them, 70 percent, attributed the atmosphere of hatred to the university’s decision to allow a “Gaza encampment” protest during the final days of the 2023-2024 spring semester.
That decision proved fateful, as it prompted a lawsuit accusing UCLA of fostering a discriminatory learning environment. Filed by several students, the complaint argued that the encampment was a source of antisemitism from the moment pro-Hamas agitators installed it. Students there chanted “death to the Jews,” the complaint recounted, set up illegal checkpoints through which no one could pass unless they denounced Israel, and ordered campus security assigned there by the university to ensure that no Jews entered it.
Alleging that UCLA refused to clear the encampment despite knowing what was happening there, the complaint charged that administrators put on a “remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality,” and in doing so, allowed a “Jewish Exclusion Zone” on its property, violating its own policies as well as “the basic guarantee of equal access to educational facilities that receive federal funding” and other equal protection laws.
In addition to students, university officials have also been targeted by pro-Hamas activists — as The Algemeiner has previously reported.
On Feb. 5 some 50 members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the allied campus group Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine amassed on the property of Jay Sures — a Jewish member of the Board of Regents, the governing body for the University of California (UC) system — and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’ garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.
The behavior crossed the line, Frenk said in an email sent to the entire student body, and he suspended both groups while commissioning the school’s Office of Student Conduct to complete a thorough investigation into the incident. Defying the disciplinary measures, an estimated 150 people — including members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), among other anti-Israel groups — the next day marched through the campus demanding that SJP’s punishment be repealed while arguing it is they and not Sures who are victims of racism.
“If you look at who actually experienced violence, it’s overwhelming our own students, and that was the fault of our university administration” Michael Chwe, a professor of political science and member of FJP, was quoted by The Daily Bruin as saying. “For them to be claiming that our students are violent is completely backward.”
That same month, a Jewish faculty group at the university issued an open letter calling attention to a slew of indignities to which they have been subjected in recent months. The missive enumerated a litany of falsehoods spread about Jews by a task force created to study anti-Arab bigotry on the campus — including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression,” promoted the interests of conservative groups, and harmed minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
The group added that discrimination at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) has wreaked demonstrable harm on Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
In Monday’s announcement, Frenk called for reforming UCLA’s culture to ensure that all are accepted, regardless of race, ethnicity, and creed.
“UCLA is at an inflection point,” he said. “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Inflection Point’: UCLA Announces Initiative to Combat Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Connecticut Men Charged With Hate Crime for Vandalizing Menorah

Illustrative: A menorah knocked to the ground by an antisemitic vandal who attacked a Jewish educational center in eastern Moscow. Photo: SHAMIR.
Police in Guilford, Connecticut have arrested and charged Steven Prinz Jr., 25, and Troy Prinz, 22, for allegedly vandalizing a menorah set up for public display.
The menorah’s owner reported the damage to law enforcement on Jan. 13 and provided surveillance video of the Jan. 5 crime. The suspects hid their faces, one with a gas mask and the other with fabric, and knocked over the menorah before stomping it on the ground, breaking multiple parts. Before discovering the footage, the owner had originally reported that wind had knocked down the menorah.
The two brothers, who were arrested on Wednesday, face charges of second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias, second-degree conspiracy to commit intimidation based on bigotry or bias, first-degree criminal mischief, and first-degree conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. Police released both men after they posted $25,000 court-set bonds.
The Guilford Police Department’s Lt. Martina Jakober said in a statement that the investigation “involved significant cooperation between the police and members of our community in order to locate and preserve the essential evidence needed to properly identify these suspects.”
Jakober added that “the men and women of the Guilford Police Department wish to extend our deepest appreciation to all who live and work in the community” and that “our collective efforts, as the police and the community, ultimately resulted in their identification and arrest.”
Rabbi Yossi Yaffe, director for Chabad-Lubavitch of the Shoreline which had set up the menorah, released a statement following the arrests.
“This aberration does not represent the Guilford community. For 25 years, Chabad of the Shoreline’s menorah has illuminated Guilford without incident,” Yaffe stated. “Throughout the years, many residents from different faith communities and from across the political spectrum have expressed their appreciation and pride in having a menorah on the Guilford town green. With G-d’s help, we will continue to share the menorah’s light for many years to come!”
Yaffe announced that the hate crime targeting the menorah had inspired the community to increase its efforts to promote the holiday, with plans to increase displays and distribution of menorahs next Hanukkah.
Jakober said that the police department intends “to reflect on this incident and continuously work to figure out an ever-strengthening partnership with the community.” She added that “together, we can be sure that acts of hate or bias have no place in Guilford.”
Last week, the legal system made further efforts to counter alleged hate crimes in New York and Florida.
In Manhattan on Thursday, prosecutors said that Utah man Luis Ramirez, 23, allegedly proclaimed himself “Hitler reincarnated,” threatened to kill “as many Jews as I killed in [World War II],” and targeted New York City’s Central Synagogue. The judge denied bail for Ramirez and required him to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Prosecutors said that Ramirez had shown signs of paranoia and delusion which included calling himself by the names of “biblical characters.” Court documents stated that Ramirez had been diagnosed as “schizophrenic, suffering from hallucinations, delusions, and not being connected to reality.” A military officer cadet training school had reportedly discharged Ramirez for psychological reasons. Photos from Ramirez’s court appearance show him grinning.
Ramirez faces as much as 15 years’ imprisonment for a terrorism charge. “He is now charged with significant terrorism and hate crime charges and was remanded into custody,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “Any form of antisemitism is despicable, and I want Manhattan’s Jewish community to know we are remaining extremely vigilant.”
The judge scheduled Ramirez’s next court appearance for March 20.
Meanwhile, in Florida on Wednesday, the Boynton Beach Police Department arrested Adam Elshazly, charging him with allegedly targeting his former employer with violent and antisemitic threats via texts on July 2, 2024. The messages included antisemitic images and threats of violent sexual abuse against the victim’s wife and daughter. The victim told police that he had hired Elshazly 10 years ago for a job and fired him three days later for poor performance, not to hear from him again until receiving the text messages.
Police charged Elshazly with a count of intimidation with prejudice while committing an offense and released him the next day following the posting of a $30,000 bond. A judge scheduled his arraignment for Thursday.
The post Connecticut Men Charged With Hate Crime for Vandalizing Menorah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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