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The Media Painted Israel’s Eurovision Entry as ‘Divisive’ — Viewers Made Her a Star
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
If you were reading the media’s Eurovision coverage ahead of Saturday night’s live final, you could be forgiven for thinking Europe was on the brink of revolt — not over the music, but because Israel was allowed to compete.
For days, major outlets drip-fed a steady stream of articles focused less on the music and more on the “divisiveness” of Israel’s singer, Yuval Raphael. The contest was held in Basel, Switzerland — in keeping with tradition that the previous year’s winner hosts the following year’s event. But instead of coverage on costumes, staging, or song predictions, much of the press zeroed in on Israel.
Take the Associated Press, which on May 16 published a piece headlined: “Israel’s presence still roils Eurovision a year after major protests over the war in Gaza.” The article detailed a protest in Basel the night before the final — involving 200 people, “many draped in Palestinian flags,” demanding Israel’s expulsion from the competition.
That’s 200 people. In a city hosting an event watched by 160 million.
But beyond the AP’s decision to devote an entire article to a relatively small protest, it’s what the piece doesn’t say that stands out.
The article solemnly describes demonstrators marching “in silence down a street noisy with music and Eurovision revelry” — conferring a quiet dignity to the scene — while omitting that just days earlier, protesters in the same city were filmed shouting death threats and that one man was caught miming the slitting of Yuval Raphael’s throat.
The article also recites the protestors’ talking point: “Russia was banned after invading Ukraine, so why not Israel?” A responsible journalist might have added a key bit of context: Eurovision is a contest between broadcasters, and Russia’s state broadcaster was disqualified for breaching contest rules. Israel, by contrast, was attacked by Hamas on October 7, and its broadcaster KAN was not accused of doing anything wrong.
NBC News took an even more dramatic tone with its headline: “United by music, divided on Israel: Eurovision tensions bubble up in famously neutral Switzerland.” Readers were told that protests over Israel’s participation had reached a “fever pitch,” and that “Basel, and Europe at large, are anything but united.”
A fever pitch? For 200 people with flags — and little more than death threats for a 24-year-old woman?
The AFP joined the chorus with a headline on May 11: “Parade, protests kick off Eurovision Song Contest week.” But even that article opened with a contradictory statement: “The Swiss city is hosting the 69th edition of the world’s biggest annual live televized music event, reaching around 160 million viewers.”
In other words: massive global interest. And yet, we’re meant to believe the event was overshadowed by a protest that could barely fill a city square.
The UK media did its part too. On May 10, the BBC reported: “Israel heads to Eurovision final, despite protests” — a headline designed to suggest Raphael had narrowly slipped through under a cloud of outrage.
Meanwhile, The Independent vaguely claimed that “tensions” had erupted over Israel’s performance, without saying who was tense, or why.
The same publication even attempted to reframe one of the anti-Israel protestors who tried to storm the stage when Raphael was singing during the final as the victim, running a lead that defies belief:
Pro Palestine protester’s hair pulled as attempted Eurovision disruption blocked.
And The Guardian ran multiple pieces implying Israel’s participation was in jeopardy, after national broadcasters from Spain and Ireland requested a “discussion” over Israel’s inclusion.
Israel Triumphs in Public Vote
So after all the noise, what happened?
Israel came first in the audience vote.
Yuval Raphael placed second overall in the competition, with 357 points. Austria’s winner received 436 points. But here’s the key detail: Israel scored 297 points from the public, compared to just 60 from the jury. Austria, by contrast, received 178 from the public and 258 from juries.
In other words: if the public alone had decided, Israel would have won.
Israel earned the maximum 12 points in the public vote from the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Australia, and Portugal — all of whose juries gave her zero. In Ireland, where the broadcaster led the charge to discuss Israel’s participation, the public gave Israel 10 points, and the jury gave 7.
For all the media’s insistence that Israel’s presence was unwelcome, millions of ordinary viewers voted otherwise.
And yet, even as the final aired, broadcasters continued to undermine Israel.
Spain’s RTVE ignored warnings from the European Broadcasting Union and allowed its presenters to recite unverifiable casualty figures: “The victims of the Israeli attacks in Gaza now exceed 50,000, including more than 15,000 children, according to the United Nations.” (The UN has issued no such definitive number.) Before the broadcast began, RTVE aired a message: “In the face of human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.”
Will Spain face disqualification next year for politicizing the contest on-air? Don’t hold your breath.
Even the BBC’s Graham Norton seemed to join the pattern of omission, describing Yuval Raphael as a newcomer who only began singing in 2023 after appearing on Israel’s Rising Star. He neglected to mention she is also a survivor of the October 7 massacre at the Nova music festival — where she hid under the bodies of others who were murdered.
Let’s be honest: much of the media wasn’t reporting on Eurovision — it was campaigning within it. The press wanted to make Israel’s participation look controversial. They wanted Yuval Raphael to lose. That, for them, would have been the ultimate verdict: a musical referendum on Israel.
But they failed.
The audience saw through it. The public voted. And Israel’s Yuval Raphael sang — and soared.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post The Media Painted Israel’s Eurovision Entry as ‘Divisive’ — Viewers Made Her a Star first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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French Authorities Replant Memorial Olive Tree and Launch Seventh Ilan Halimi Award
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
French authorities planted a new olive tree on Wednesday to honor Ilan Halimi, nearly a decade after the young French Jewish man was tortured to death and two weeks after a previous commemorative tree was cut down.
Hervé Chevreau, mayor of the norther Paris suburb Épinay, announced that several olive trees will be replanted in Halimi’s memory, praising “a remarkable outpouring of solidarity” reflected in the donations.
With a commemorative ceremony on Wednesday, the first olive tree will be planted in Saint-Ouen, a northern suburb of Paris in the Île-de-France region.
“In the context of rising antisemitic acts, the community aims to reaffirm its steadfast commitment against hatred, forgetfulness, and indifference,” Chevreau said in a statement. “This gesture of reflection and resilience responds to the serious act of vandalism in Épinay-sur-Seine, where the commemorative tree was deliberately cut down.”
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, he was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, an olive tree was planted in Halimi’s memory. Earlier this month, the memorial was found felled — probably with a chainsaw — in Epinay-sur-Seine.
Halimi’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, numerous prominent figures attended, including France’s Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia, Yonathan Arfi, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, and Minister for Gender Equality and the Fight Against Discrimination Aurore Bergé.
At the event, Bergé announced the launch of the seventh edition of the Ilan Halimi Award, marking 20 years since his disappearance.
Established in 2018, the award seeks to fight racism and antisemitism by inspiring young people to take action.
Since then, French authorities have annually recognized projects led by young people aged 13 to 25 from schools, universities, associations, and civic or integration programs.
“The launch of the 2026 edition of the Ilan Halimi Award in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is more than an act of remembrance — it is a pledge to the future,” Bergé said during the ceremony.
Ils peuvent tronçonner un arbre, nous replanterons.
Ils peuvent abattre un arbre, nous ferons vivre la mémoire.Nous ne laisserons pas Ilan Halimi disparaître une nouvelle fois.
Le Prix Ilan Halimi 2026 est lancé. pic.twitter.com/Tn9SxlARJA
— Aurore Bergé (@auroreberge) September 2, 2025
Last week, two 19-year-old Tunisian twin brothers, undocumented and with prior convictions for theft and violence, were arrested in France for allegedly vandalizing and cutting down Halimi’s memorial.
Both brothers appeared in criminal court and were remanded in custody pending their trial, scheduled for Oct. 22.
They will face trial on charges of “aggravated destruction of property” and “desecration of a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion,” offenses that, according to prosecutors, carry a sentence of up to two years in prison.
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After Deadly Firebombing, Boulder Jews Forced to Hide Weekly Hostage March Due to Escalating Harassment
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, US, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A group of Jewish activists advocating for the Israeli hostages still held captive by Hamas terrorists in Gaza has announced plans to cease publicizing planned demonstrations and increase security in response to continued community intimidation in the months following a June 1 Molotov cocktail attack that left one person dead and 13 injured.
The group Run for Their Lives includes more than 230 chapters globally, and the one based in Boulder will now take extra measures to protect participants since the attack, for which authorities have charged alleged assailant Mohamed Sabry Soliman, which has in turn provoked further opposition.
Videos reviewed by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) show anti-Israel demonstrators calling event attendees “Nazi,” “racist,” and “genocidal c**t.”
A local politician running for city council has also demonized the hostage supporters.
CBS Colorado reported that Aaron Stone allegedly called Rachel Amaru, the chapter’s Jewish founder, a “Nazi,” a slur he defended as “a very strong word to use.” He further said that in looking at Amaru he was “not seeing a Jewish person” but rather “someone who is walking down the street talking about 20 hostages and ignoring the two million Palestinian hostages that are being kept in Gaza.”
Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, said in a statement that “participants are facing a level of harassment that makes it impossible to continue safely in public view.”
Stefanie Clarke, who serves as co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, added in a statement that “it is unacceptable that less than three months after a deadly antisemitic attack, Jews in Boulder are once again being forced into hiding.”
Clarke stated that “we will not be intimidated, and we will not be driven out of public spaces where we should feel safe. The fact that someone seeking a seat on City Council is at the center of this harassment should be cause for alarm. Boulder cannot claim to be a city of inclusion and justice while giving a platform to Jew hate.”
The mountain states regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its own statement in support of the pro-Israel activists.
“We stand in firm solidarity with the Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives following their difficult decision to no longer publicly disclose the location of their events,” the organization said. “It is deeply unfortunate that after enduring the horrific June 1 firebomb attack that resulted in the death of a community member, participants now face such persistent harassment that they must keep their gatherings secret to simply stay safe.”
On July 15, Soliman, who pleaded not guilty, waved his right to a preliminary hearing in a case where the 150 state charges and 12 federal charges include murder and attempted murder. He will see a judge on Tuesday for a scheduled arraignment and faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Prosecutors say that Soliman, an Egyptian who came to the United States on a B-2 Tourist Visa in August 2022, told police that “he wanted to kill all Zionist people” and that he sought to murder 20 of the demonstrators. A note found in his car read “Zionism is our enemies untill [sic] Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land.”
Soliman also reportedly said that he had planned the attack for a year and planned it for after his daughter’s graduation. Federal officials sought to deport Soliman’s family; however, a judge blocked that effort.
“This is a proper end to an absurd legal effort on the plaintiff’s part. Just like her terrorist husband, she and her children are here illegally and are rightfully in ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody for removal as a result,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.”
In August, the ADL released a report ranking Colorado — which contains approximately 110,400 Jewish residents, accounting for 1.9 percent of the population — as eighth in the country for combating antisemitism.
“I am thrilled that the Anti-Defamation League has recognized Colorado as a national leader in fighting antisemitism, but there is much more to do,” the state’s governor Jared Polis said at the time. “Such hate and violence have no place in our Colorado for All, and that is why Colorado is leading the way to combat these trends and protect Coloradans’ right to worship how you want, making Colorado safer.”
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Lead Writer of Upcoming DC Comics Series Celebrated Oct. 7 Massacre in Resurfaced Social Media Posts
Gretchen Felker-Martin joins a virtual discussion from home. Photo: Screenshot
Gretchen Felker-Martin, an author and film critic who was recently announced as lead writer of the upcoming DC Comics series “Red Hood,” has an extensive history of endorsing terrorist acts and defending the murder of Jews and Israelis, according to a review of the writer’s social media posts.
In the posts — screenshots of which circulated on X/Twitter and other platforms this week — Felker-Martin appeared to praise Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US and expressed support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
During the Oct. 7 onslaught, as Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages in the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Felker-Martin argued that Israeli civilians are “settlers” and an “occupying force whose daily lives serve to grind out the hope, culture, and memory of those they oppress.” She also seemingly defended Hamas’s murdering of Israeli babies, saying that Israel is an “imperialist nightmare” and that Hamas is trying to “survive their rule by any means necessary.”
Hamas is designated by several countries as a terrorist organization.
“You cannot subject human beings to brutal conditions under which no hope for a meaningful future exists and then blame them for violent action taken to correct this state. Free Palestine,” she wrote on Oct. 7.
Later that month, Felker-Martin wrote that “Zionism is full-fledged Nazism and has accrued mainstream support throughout the west because of that, not in spite of it.”
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As the ensuing war in Gaza continued in the months ahead, Felker-Martin sharpened her criticisms of Israel, condemning Zionists as “crazy” and comparing them to “slime.” The writer also lambasted Neil Druckmann, the Israeli creator of the popular “The Last of Us” video game series, for being a “Zionist.” She encouraged fellow progressives not to support then-US Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, condemning Harris for not “moving an inch on the genocide.” She also falsely accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and repudiated actress Hailee Steinfeld as a “Zionist piece of s**t.” Steinfeld has seemingly not made public statements about Israel but came under fire from leftists after she visited the Jewish state with family in 2019 for a party.
Felker-Martin separately defended Osama bin Laden’s role in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, writing that “blowing up the World Trade Center is probably the most principled and defensible thing he ever did.”
Jewish organizations and antisemitism watchdog groups quickly condemned the remarks. StandWithUs, a nonpartisan pro-Israel organization, urged DC Comics to reconsider hiring Felker-Martin, citing her inflammatory and offensive commentary.