Eurovision 2026 | Israel allowed to compete | Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Iceland withdraw

GazTheLegend said:
Not gonna lie I'm extremely irritated that Israel came second and the UK came last, for a number of reasons
  1. If it's popularity that wins you the vote, you're never going to sell me Israel coming second. Having to muffle out booing by the audience tells you everything.
  2. If it's talent that wins, then the Israeli singer was good but there are so many -better- singers and songs, not least of which Delta Goodrem.
  3. If it's silliness, then how do the UK end up last? Yes eins zwei drei is terrible but then there are SO MANY terrible songs that were even terribl-er in past years. And this one: the Greek and Moldovan entries were both silly and talentless. It's clear that "looks mum no computer" has some actual talent, in that he CAN use electronica, just a bit of a shame that obviously the pre produced tracks can't highlight something like 2)
  4. If it's politics, then why are we pretending the audience has a say in it at all? Just scrap the televote entirely and do the same as FIFA does with their own disgusting and shameless voterigging
But honestly in terms of "soft power" I don't necessarily agree that getting the world to hate your country -even more- by rigging a music contest is helpful, because I'm sure I can't be alone in that I would have a lot more sympathy for Israel if they participated fairly and then came last or at least bottom half of the table than whatever the hell is going on here.
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It is never about song quality. But as far as Israel goes, it was simply about pro-Israeli crowd teaming up. Nobody can fight that, unless there is teaming up for someone else. I am obviously only speaking about televoting here.
 
Cheimoon said:
Of Australia or other countries. EBU is open to letting anyone participate, it's not unique to Israel. Canada is currently looking into participating, actually.
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Except that my point was I’ve never understood why generally Israel are in ANY European comps.
Football tournaments and qualifiers for example.
 
Scanny said:
Except that my point was I’ve never understood why generally Israel are in ANY European comps.
Football tournaments and qualifiers for example.
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Being part of Uefa makes more sense than constant eurovision presence. Up till recently most of the middle Eastern countries did not even recognise Israel. So , playing games In these countries is an obvious recipe for massive disaster and further escalation.
 
The Firestarter said:
Being part of Uefa makes more sense than constant eurovision presence. Up till recently most of the middle Eastern countries did not even recognise Israel. So , playing games In these countries is an obvious recipe for massive disaster and further escalation.
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I think there needs to be a conversation about why Europe is continuing to allow Israel into UEFA and Eurovision while they commit genocidal behaviour against their near neighbours.

I'm not saying that being made to play their football matches against neighbours rather than safer games against european teams will change their political direction.

However why should European nations have to deal with the extra security and policing costs of them playing here.

If Israel choose not to "play nicely" then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to play at all within Europe.

If they've chosen to wage war with neighbours they alone should pay the consequences, not have those consequences affect competitions in real European nations.
 
GazTheLegend said:
Not gonna lie I'm extremely irritated that Israel came second and the UK came last, for a number of reasons
  1. If it's popularity that wins you the vote, you're never going to sell me Israel coming second. Having to muffle out booing by the audience tells you everything.
  2. If it's talent that wins, then the Israeli singer was good but there are so many -better- singers and songs, not least of which Delta Goodrem.
  3. If it's silliness, then how do the UK end up last? Yes eins zwei drei is terrible but then there are SO MANY terrible songs that were even terribl-er in past years. And this one: the Greek and Moldovan entries were both silly and talentless. It's clear that "looks mum no computer" has some actual talent, in that he CAN use electronica, just a bit of a shame that obviously the pre produced tracks can't highlight something like 2)
  4. If it's politics, then why are we pretending the audience has a say in it at all? Just scrap the televote entirely and do the same as FIFA does with their own disgusting and shameless voterigging
But honestly in terms of "soft power" I don't necessarily agree that getting the world to hate your country -even more- by rigging a music contest is helpful, because I'm sure I can't be alone in that I would have a lot more sympathy for Israel if they participated fairly and then came last or at least bottom half of the table than whatever the hell is going on here.
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We always come last.

They hate us because they anus.
 
What a year, Levski Sofia won the title, Dara won Eurovision. Now if my 8+1 sunday league wins it (we finished 2nd regular season, playoffs now), I'm dead sure United are winning the PL next season!
 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Crowd didn’t reflect the “public” vote. Odd that?

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Brilliant that, tons of reaction content all across the world of people genuinely ecstatic at the final result. Feels like winning a major football tourney.

PS. I think its the largest point differential in history , so not sure about not reflecting the public vote.
 
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GazTheLegend said:
Not gonna lie I'm extremely irritated that Israel came second and the UK came last, for a number of reasons
  1. If it's popularity that wins you the vote, you're never going to sell me Israel coming second. Having to muffle out booing by the audience tells you everything.
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The winner isn't chosen by chosing the song that was least hated though. A song could be the most popular (as in the song that most people had as favorite) and hated simultaneously.
 
The Firestarter said:
Brilliant that, tons of reaction content all across the world of people genuinely ecstatic at the final result. Feels like winning a major football tourney.

PS. I think its the largest point differential in history , so not sure about not reflecting the public vote.
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As in, Israel got a good chunk of the public vote but looked like 99% of that (multi national) crowd were happy with Bulgaria over Israel.

I probably wasn’t clear. And probably not now.
 
Superunknown said:
That was a dramatic finale. Glad Bulgaria won. I thought they performed well in the semis and the performance in the final was also great. Class improvisation to grab the chairs in the waiting area when they performed the song at the very end. Deserved winners, imo.

Surprised that France didn't do so well with the public. Israel winning would have been very bad for the competition and it's already a divisive enough issue with them being there. Them winning could have killed it with the amount of countries pulling out if they had won.
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That was awesome. Dara really owned that stage.
 
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