Someone please explain again why Israel, a country that is definitely not in Europe, is participating in a european competition.
this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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Because it's a contest for members of the European Broadcasting Union. Technically Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia could enter if they wanted to.
Oh. Still doesnt really make much sense but hey ho.
"The boundaries of the European Broadcasting Area have their origin in the regions served and linked by telegraphy cables in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The European Broadcasting Area plays a part in the definition of eligibility for active membership in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and thus participation in the Eurovision Song Contest."
Ahhh, cheers. Now do Australia :D
Well they just asked nicely :)
And came straight in with the bangers. I didn't watch this year but I heard theirs was class again.
it's eurovision, what made you think any of it made any sense?
Their wiki page pretty much covers it.
tl;dr: Any country that is a member of the European Broadcasting Area or Council of Europe can participate.
I still don't understand how they came in 2nd
Because all the people who didn't like them boycotted it.
and their votes were split over multiple countries. the AstroTurf gang only have to convince a few hundred people to bit multiple times for Israel and they look popular. it helps construct a narrative that most people agree with Israel.
And it's cheap as well.
Votes are pretty easily astroturfed. You vote by buying votes and can vote more than once if you have multiple debit and credit cards
You can vote up to 20 times in the public vote. It's scandalous.
I was surprised too, but I can tolerate Israel as being close enough. But having Australia in Eurovision is completely insane.
Yeah idk about you but most people really can't tolerate a country committing genocide in real time
Well, yknow, there's the whole israel thing
And even the article's thumbnail has an israeli flag, who would have thought people might have issues with that...
Good, I gave it a miss and I'm normally a regular viewer. Not surprised Israel did well since those left watching are more likely to be pro-Israel, I half expected them to win.
Not to mention the astro-turfed voting by Israel last year (and presumably this year but I didn't watch)
Israel came second
Just imagine how low next year would be if Israel had won...
If Israel had won, there wouldn’t be one next year.
Almost certainly it wouldn't be held in Israel, like when Ukraine won in 2022 it was held in the UK the next year. It's a convention not a rule that the winning country hosts it the next year. Unless you mean that Israel winning itself would destroy the competition, that's possible.
I mean the latter.
Reform voters might start watching
Good, and the viewing figures will likely continue to drop globally while KAN (Israels broadcaster) are allowed in.
Death to Eurovision!
Still 5.2 million too many. Though the UK is probably one of the more Israel-friendly countries after Germany, so maybe they're hurting worse everywhere else.