The Media Painted Israel’s Eurovision Entry as ‘Divisive.’ Viewers Made Her a Star.

 (With thanks to Honest Reporting, For the full report see https://honestreporting.com/the-media-painted-israels-eurovision-entry-as-divisive-viewers-made-her-a-star/: ) 5 minutes

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.

The contest was held in Basel, Switzerland 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.

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? An entire continent divided? Over 200 people with flags — and little more than death threats for a 24-year-old woman?

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 televised 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.

CNN, meanwhile, once again demonstrated its disconnect from public sentiment with a piece titled “The good, the bad and the raunchy: All 26 Eurovision songs, ranked from worst to first.” The article placed Yuval Raphael’s “New Day Will Rise” at a dismissive 20th out of 26, describing it as the second consecutive Israeli entry to “make implicit reference to Hamas’ attacks,” but adding that “on a musical level, it’s the weaker of the pair.”

Israel Triumphs in Public Vote

So after all the noise, what happened?

Israel came first in the audience vote. 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.

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 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.