The Eurovision Song Contest has always prided itself on being a festival of fun.
Indeed, the whole point of Eurovision is not to take it seriously, but instead to be swept up in the experience of weird and wacky national acts, charmingly enduring national jury voting patterns (yes Greece and Cyprus, we’re looking at you), and the tongue in cheek TV commentary.
But this year’s Eurovision seems painfully different. For just as our universities and city centres have become infected by a pro-Palestinian militant spirit in the months since Israeli civilians were butchered, raped and kidnapped by the terrorists of Hamas, so too has the world’s most famous singing competition.
Eden Golan is a 20-year-old pop starlet. Like many of the other singers who will be featured tomorrow, she is taking her first major step on the international music scene. But unlike her contemporaries, this young woman is representing Israel, the world’s only Jewish state. And that fact has brought out the worst aspects of humanity in a calculated bid to try and destroy her ability to perform in the name of misguided and naked ideological ambitions.
Thus far in her journey to tomorrow’s final, Miss Golan has faced a crowd of thousands gathered on the streets of Malmö, Sweden, who have demanded that she be removed from Eurovision on the grounds of her nationality.
These protestors have claimed that she must be held responsible for what they see as a “genocidal” war by Israel against all Palestinians – conveniently ignoring that this conflict was started by the Palestinians of Hamas, and that the only impetus towards genocide seen to date has been on the Hamas side of the violence, given Israel has been cleared of that charge by the International Court of Justice – and that a boycott must be imposed upon all things Israel.
So virulent have these protestors been that Miss Golan has been confined to her hotel room when not practising or singing because her security team cannot guarantee her safety on the streets of a European city.
Nor has the madness stopped there. Miss Golan was booed during her practice sessions in the Eurovision arena, subjected to hostile questions by journalists, and when the Finnish entrant was filmed enjoying a moment of levity with her between sessions, such was the online pile-on that he had to issue an apology for having done so.
Yet throughout it all, Miss Golan has remembered what she and Eurovision are there for. In the face of open hatred and obvious anti-Semitism, she has taken on her detractors with grace and dignity and with a single-minded focus that the best Eurovision competitors of yesteryear have embodied. She has rightly insisted that she will stay the course for as long as the voters would allow because “we are all here for one reason, and one reason only.” Which is, of course, the joy of song.
Encouragingly, the voting public appears to agree with her. Faced with a choice between the hatred of the mob and the passion of Miss Golan in singing “Hurricane”, they exercised their democratic rights and promptly sent the Israeli contestant through to the final.
Eden Golan may not win Eurovision tomorrow, but in a sense she has done so already with her courageous display. And all of us who know the difference between right and wrong, and who value the Eurovision spirit, should wish her well on her journey.
Dr Alan Mendoza is Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society
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