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Eurovision Organizers ‘Disappointed’ Jury Member Improperly Withheld Points From Israel Due to Gaza War
Eden Golan performing “Hurricane” for Israel at the Grand Final at Malmö Arena. Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett/EBU
Organizers of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest told The Algemeiner on Monday they were saddened to discover that one of the competition’s jury members knowingly violated rules of the contest by refusing to allocate points to Israeli singer Eden Golan because of his personal bias against Israel and its ongoing war targeting Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
“We have been made aware by our Norwegian Member NRK about the comments made by one of the jurors regarding their voting in the Eurovision Song Contest,” the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said in a statement. “We are disappointed if the juror in question disregarded the instructions that they confirm they had received as part of the Voting Rules of the Contest. The voting procedure is monitored in all countries and the EBU received a notarized result from NRK signed by each jury member confirming that they did vote according to the rules.”
The EBU did not address The Algemeiner‘s inquiry about disciplinary measures that might be taken against Norwegian jury member Daniel Owen for breaching rules of the competition.
Each participating member of the EBU has a national jury that votes in the Eurovision Song Contest. Jury members vote individually and are required to distribute points to Eurovision contestants based solely on their songs and performances in the competition. The final winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is chosen by combining jury votes and public votes, also called the audience’s televotes.
The Norwegian broadcaster NRK is a member of the EBU and, following the Eurovision 2024 Grand Final on Saturday, Owen said he was shocked and upset that the Norwegian jury awarded eight points in total to Israel. He admitted that he himself refused to give a single point to Golan, who ultimately finished in fifth place in the competition that took place this year in Malmo, Sweden.
“I was not involved in the allocation of points to Israel,” he said. “Although I was not involved in the awarding of points to Israel, I would like to apologize that this was shown from the Norwegian jury.”
Owen’s actions were in violation of Eurovision rules, which he admitted in a video posted on social media. He said that before the Eurovision was broadcast, the jury was shown a video detailing rules of the competition, one of which states that “you must not favor or discriminate against any participant based on nationality, gender, suitability, political views, or any other reason other than the song and performance. Do not let political views affect how you evaluate a song and/or an artist.”
Owen deliberately ignored Eurovision rules by withholding points for Israel. He said in the social media video that it was “impossible” for him not to take into consideration the ongoing Israel-Hamas war when distributing points.
“What is happening in Palestine is heartbreaking, and I cannot in any way support Israel’s actions. In my opinion, Israel should not be allowed to participate in Eurovision at all,” he said. “Eurovision promotes the motto ‘united by music.’ But when the party is over and the music has stopped, the situation remains unchanged. This is something we cannot ignore.”
He concluded by saying, “My heart and all my support go out to Palestine. Free Palestine.”
A member of the Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest jury admits that he refused to give Eden Golan and Israel any points at all due to the war in Gaza
24-y-old Daniel Owen ends his message with “Free Palestine”
How many such cases were there among jury members yesterday?
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 12, 2024
Leading up to the start of the Eurovision, organizers came under fire for allowing Israel to participate in the competition, anti-Israel activists urged contestants to pull out of the contest to boycott the Jewish state’s involvement, and thousands protested against Israel in Malmo, including outside Golan’s hotel room.
Gunilla Süssmann, who was also on the Norwegian jury alongside Owen, said about the jury allocating eight points to Israel: “The fact that the jury did not choose to boycott artists is not the same as us supporting war. This was a purely professional assessment where we had to assess the best song based on our musical expertise. That is what we have done.”
Stig Karlsen, head of the Norwegian delegation, said the EBU was notified regarding Owen’s breach of Eurovision rules. “The jury must judge the song, artist, and performance without being colored by politics or other non-musical matters,” he added.
Switzerland’s Nemo won the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “The Code” and a total of 591 points from jurors in each participating country and the global public. Croatian artist Baby Lasagna was the runner-up with 547 points, Ukraine was third with 453 points, and France came in fourth place with 445 points. Rounding out the top five was Israel with 375 points. Twenty-five countries competed in the Eurovision grand finals this year.
After arriving back home to Israel on Sunday, Golan told reporters she was not shocked when she heard the low scores given to Israel by the national juries. “I think it was understood [that it would turn out that way],” she said.
Israel performed quite well in terms of the public vote, according to the Times of Israel.
Voters in 14 different countries out of the 37 eligible to vote, as well as those in all non-participating Eurovision nations, which are grouped together, allocated the most possible points — 12 — to Israel. The Jewish state got 12 votes from countries including Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It also got 10 points, the second-highest allocation possible, from Albania, Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, Moldova, Slovenia, and Ireland.
The post Eurovision Organizers ‘Disappointed’ Jury Member Improperly Withheld Points From Israel Due to Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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