RSS
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
The post Israel’s Eden Golan Advances to Eurovision Finals Despite Thousands of Anti-Israel Protesters in Sweden first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Eurovision Denies Claims of Vote Rigging as Spanish PM Calls for Israel’s Exclusion From Cultural Events
Yuval Raphael from Israel with the title “New Day Will Rise” on stage at the second semi-final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest in the Arena St. Jakobshalle. Photo: Jens Büttner/dpa via Reuters Connect
The director of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest on Monday defended the results of this year’s competition in response to accusations about voting being rigged in favor of Israel, which finished second place in the grand final on Saturday in Basel, Switzerland.
At the same time, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for Israel to be excluded from all international cultural events, including the Eurovision Song Contest, because of its military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
National broadcasters from Spain and Belgium have expressed doubts about Israeli singer Yuval Raphael finishing first place in the public vote (televoting) and second place in the grand final with her song “New Day Will Rise.” Austrian singer JJ won first place with his song “Wasted Love” and a total of 436 points, while Raphael finished with 357 points.
Raphael received the most votes from the public at 297 — more than any of the 26 finalists — but ranked 14th in the jury vote, which resulted in her second-place finish in the Eurovision grand final.
Eurovision Director Martin Green defended the reliability of the results, saying there has been no indication of “bias or irregularities” in the voting for this year’s contest.
“The televoting system currently used in Eurovision is considered the most advanced in the world today, combining advanced verification processes, data security mechanisms, and analytical review of voting patterns,” Green said in a statement. “[T]here is no suspicion of bias or irregularities in the awarding of points — not even in relation to the full score given to Israel by Spanish viewers.”
“It is important to emphasize that the voting operation for the Eurovision Song Contest is the most advanced in the world and each country’s result is checked and verified by a huge team of people to exclude any suspicious or irregular voting patterns,” Green added. “An independent compliance monitor reviews both jury and public vote data to ensure we have a valid result. Our voting partner Once has confirmed that a valid vote was recorded in all countries participating in this year’s Grand Final and in the Rest of the World.”
Martin Österdahl, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)’s executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, echoed similar sentiments about voting results being reliable in a statement to the EFE news agency. Like Green, he also mentioned that voting results are verified by the independent auditing firm and Dutch company Once.net and reviewed by compliance supervisors.
Spain’s national broadcaster Radio Televisión Española (RTVE) has urged the EBU, which coordinates the Eurovision, for an audit of the results from Saturday night after Raphael received 12 points — the maximum amount given — from televoters in Spain, despite public protests in the country against Israel’s participation in the competition. RTVE previously called for Israel’s participation in future Eurovision contests to be up for debate because of the Israel-Hamas war.
Immediately before broadcasting the grand final of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, RTVE broadcast a message in Spanish and English that called for “Peace and Justice for Palestine.” RTVE could be fined for the messaging since the EBU has said Eurovision must remain an apolitical competition. The EBU already threatened the Spanish national broadcaster that it could be fined for broadcasting messages about Gaza.
“We take every broadcaster’s concerns seriously,” Österdahl told EFE, before adding that Eurovision organizers have been in contact with RTVE about their concerns since the grand final.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a longtime critic of Israel, on Monday compared the Jewish state to Russia, which was banned from international events like the Eurovision after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He accused the global community of displaying a “double standard” when it comes to the treatment of Israel, and said the Jewish state should not be allowed to participate in cultural events around the world amid the war in Gaza.
“I think that nobody was shocked three years ago, when Russia began the invasion of Ukraine, they were excluded from international competitions. For example, we recently saw it this past weekend at Eurovision. Therefore, Israel should not do so either,” Sanchez said at a conference in Madrid. “We cannot allow these double standards, not even in culture events.”
The Spanish premiere also expressed solidarity with “the people of Ukraine and the people of Palestine, who are experiencing the senselessness of war and bombing.”
On Monday, the Flemish public broadcaster VRT also called for more transparency from the EBU regarding the voting for this year’s Eurovision.
“We have no indication that the counting of the televotes wasn’t carried out correctly, but we are asking for complete transparency on the part of the EBU,” said VRT’s spokesperson Yasmine Van der Borght. “The question is above all whether the current system guarantees a fair reflection of the opinion of viewers and listeners.”
The VRT also said it supports RTVE’s concerns about Israel’s participation in future Eurovision contests and again issued an “explicit call to engage in debate with all nations, out of a genuine commitment and concern for the survival of the contest.” VRT said it will reconsider its own participation in future Eurovision competitions if the EBU does not address its concerns about the contest.
“We at the VRT note that the Eurovision Song Contest as it is currently organized has become less and less a unifying and apolitical event. It is increasingly at odds with its original standards and values and with the standards and values of public broadcasting,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “At many levels the VRT collaborates well with the EBU. However, without serious answers with regard to our concerns about the Eurovision Song Contest we will question our future participation.”
During the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest this year, VRT broadcast a message about alleged human rights violations by Israel in Gaza, freedom of the press, and called for a ceasefire in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The message said: “This is industrial action. We condemn the violations of human rights by the State of Israel. Furthermore, the State of Israel is destroying freedom of the press. That’s why we interrupt the picture for a moment. #CeasefireNow #StopGenocide.” VRT did the same during the second semi-final of the Eurovision contest last year.
The post Eurovision Denies Claims of Vote Rigging as Spanish PM Calls for Israel’s Exclusion From Cultural Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran’s Top Leader Khamenei Slams ‘Outrageous’ US Demands in Nuclear Talks
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said US demands that Tehran stop enriching uranium are “excessive and outrageous,” state media reported, voicing doubts whether talks on a new nuclear deal will succeed.
“I don’t think nuclear talks with the US will bring results. I don’t know what will happen,” Khamenei said, adding that Washington should avoid making “nonsense” demands in the negotiations, four rounds of which have been held.
“A date has been suggested but we have not yet accepted it,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told state media on Tuesday when asked about a fifth round of talks, which an Iranian official said on Monday might be held this weekend in Rome.
“We are witnessing positions on the US side that do not go along with any logic and are creating problems for the negotiations. That’s why we have not determined the next round of talks, we are reviewing the matter and hope logic will prevail,” Araqchi added.
The talks on a new nuclear deal appear on shaky ground as both Iran and the US have clashed over the issue of uranium enrichment.
Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said on Monday the talks would fail if Washington insists Tehran refrain from domestic enrichment of uranium, which the US says is a possible pathway to developing nuclear bombs. Tehran says its nuclear energy program has entirely peaceful purposes, a claim disputed by several Western countries.
Last week US President Donald Trump said Tehran needed to “move quickly or something bad is going to happen” after being given a proposal for a deal. The Islamic Republic maintains it has not received any written proposal from Washington.
Trump has repeatedly warned Iran it would be bombed and face severe sanctions if it did not reach a compromise to resolve its long disputed nuclear energy program.
During his first, 2017-21 term as president, Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed temporary limits on Tehran’s enrichment activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Trump, who branded the now moribund 2015 accord one-sided in Iran’s favor, also reimposed sweeping US sanctions on Iran. The Islamic Republic responded by escalating enrichment.
The post Iran’s Top Leader Khamenei Slams ‘Outrageous’ US Demands in Nuclear Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Elections, Gaza, Polarization Drive Political Crime to Record High in Germany
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt holds a chart showing the development of antisemitic crime, during a press conference on Figures for Politically Motivated Crime in the Country, in Berlin, Germany, May 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
A series of closely fought elections, the war in Gaza, and deepening political polarization helped drive the number of politically motivated crimes in Germany to a record high last year, with an especially sharp growth in far-right violence.
The number of such offences recorded by police surged 40.2 percent to 84,172 in 2024, a report published on Tuesday by the Interior Ministry showed, a record since such data began to be collected in 2001. The number of violent political crimes rose 15 percent to 4,107, the highest level since 2016.
“Last year we saw a massive expansion of politically motivated crime coming from the right,” conservative Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told a news conference at which the figures were announced.
“Forty-five percent of the victims of politically motivated violence were injured by right-wing perpetrators,” he said.
He gave the example of assaults on gay pride parades by organized groups of far-right young people last summer.
Elsewhere, police recorded increased numbers of attacks on migrants, especially after several high-profile car-ramming and stabbing attacks on public events by immigrants, some of them asylum seekers.
There have also been increases in politically motivated crimes by the far left though such offences were far less likely to be violent, the data indicated.
Like other Western countries, Germany has been afflicted by tensions resulting from the rise of the populist far right, economic uncertainty, and growing anger, especially among immigrant communities, at the government’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The far-right Alternative for Germany scored its best-ever results in five elections – three regional, one national, and one European – in 2024, calling for tighter immigration controls and even a departure from the European Union.
The nativist party was earlier this month officially classified as “right-extremist” by Germany‘s security services, which listed cases of its politicians dismissing naturalised immigrants as “passport Germans” and implying that immigrants from Muslim countries were more likely to be criminals.
But Dobrindt said he saw no reason to ban the AfD, a move some politicians have advocated. The AfD, now the second largest party in parliament, has denied posing a threat to democracy, says it opposes violence and has brought a legal challenge against authorities’ characterization of it as extremist.
“To ban a party, we have to have evidence of an attack on the rule of law and democracy,” Dobrindt said, “and the security services’ recent assessment doesn’t sufficiently demonstrate that.”
The post Elections, Gaza, Polarization Drive Political Crime to Record High in Germany first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login