Dear Eurovision, Stop Drinking Haterade

How a singing contest brought out the worst in humanity

We were all raised to understand that hating someone for their immutable characteristics is unquestionably wrong. After all, we don’t get to choose our race or sex or where we’re born, so what are you ultimately asking someone to do when you’re against who they inherently are? If you want to bully a nerd for wearing his pants too high,¹ go for it. Maybe you’ll help him discover a style that is more flattering. But there are things that nobody has control over, and it’s simply cruel to hate someone for them. This seems obvious, and it’s an example of human progress that most of us live in societies where this is a given.

But last week at the Eurovision Song Contest, we saw that perhaps humanity hasn’t come as far as we thought. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Eurovision is like if American Idol had a baby with the Olympics.² Each country who’s a member of the European Broadcast Union (which includes some countries that aren’t in Europe, like Israel and Australia) selects a representative who performs an extremely kitschy song. Then the winner is selected based on votes from a jury as well as fan voting online. If you’re intrigued, check out the Will Ferrell movie about it, which features some incredibly catchy dumb songs.³ Anyway, the contest is a celebration of music, and specifically makes a point of not being political, since music has the ability to transcend borders.

But we don’t live in a vacuum, and sometimes politics and culture are inseparable. In 2022, Russia was banned from the contest because of their invasion of Ukraine.⁴ And in 2024, the contest was held in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war, just seven months after Hamas invaded southern Israel, murdered 1200 people, and took 250 men, women, and children hostage. Israeli society was still reeling from the tragedy, while Jews around the world were facing surging antisemitism. It was a scary moment for a young singer to represent her country, but Eden Golan rose to the occasion and despite mobs of hate and a chorus of boos, the 20 year old came in 5th place with her emotional ballad, “Hurricane.” Outside the Israeli/Jewish community, the story wasn’t that a young artist was being attacked for her identity, but rather that she had the audacity to even participate. As if she, a person dedicating her life to making art, bore responsibility for the tragedy of war. It’s crazy that at a contest that supposedly celebrates diversity, it became normalized to hate one person because of the country she was born in.

Since 2013, Israel has chosen its Eurovision representative via its own local singing competition show called Rising Star. This year’s competition came down to some really interesting choices. The finalists included Valerie Hamaty, an Israeli Arab, and Red Band, led by a puppet. Now that’s diversity. Seriously, look at how hard these puppets rock:

Ultimately, the person chosen to represent Israel was the incredibly talented and resilient Yuval Raphael. She was at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th when Hamas terrorists flew in on hang-gliders and began raping and slaughtering whoever they could find. She miraculously survived by hiding under a pile of dead bodies for 8 hours. You can hear her testimony here. Not only is she heroic for overcoming that trauma through music, but she’s got pipes.

But once again, it wasn’t about the music. This year’s competition was held in Switzerland (the winner of each competition hosts the following year’s event). The famously neutral country was anything but that. Yuval was greeted with rabid protests, people waiving Palestinian flags, and a man motioning that he’ll slit her throat. You know, typical music festival behavior. Removing national or religious identity for a moment, think about how shamelessly evil it is to treat someone who survived a brutal terrorist attack like this. If not for the name of the country on her passport, would anybody dare act in such a manner? Basel was taken over by angry mobs because a 24 year old Israeli singer who 18 months ago narrowly avoided murder happened to be there. Deranged!

Then the competition began. The representative from Australia had the liberty of singing a lighthearted (and rather oversexed) song called “Milkshake Man.” Meanwhile, Tommy Cash from Estonia performed the absurdist “Espresso Macchiato.” I swear, not all the songs are beverage themed. But they are silly and that’s the point. The performers’ job is to come out, have fun, try their best, make their country proud, and hope it leads to stardom. But Yuval didn’t have that luxury. She was held to a different standard. First, Yuval had to perform her song in the face of boos and heckles, something that none of the other singers would even dream of confronting. Second, the song she sang, “New Day Will Rise,” is about moving beyond the pain and darkness that life can bring. It’s not a metaphor for her, it’s real life. And third, while her fellow countrymen in Israel are still being held hostage, dying in battle, or sheltering from rocket attacks, she had to somehow maintain her focus on a song contest, all while being a beacon of hope to her country and to Jewish people all over the world who are facing the same hatred she is. What an unimaginable amount of pressure. And boy did she carry it well. See for yourself:

She was incredible. But not without incident. During her final performance, two British protestors were stopped by security as they attempted to rush the stage and dump a bucket of fake blood on Yuval. Pause for a second. Read that again. These activists thought they’d be doing good for the world by throwing fake blood at someone who recently survived being murdered.

Hatred of Jews and Israel somehow finds a way of poisoning everything. Song competitions like Eurovision were designed to be an escape from politics and division. It was a chance to appreciate the diversity of cultures and how each country has its own take on pop music. In fact, Israel has won the competition 4 times in the past (1978, 1979, 1998, and 2018). And it’s not like back then there was peace in the Middle East. But there was an understanding that not everything has to be about politics. If Eurovision was a political purity test, they’d have to take the “Euro” out of it altogether.⁵

So what happened to Yuval in the end? It’s quite a story. Since voting is determined by combining the jury votes with the fan votes, at first it looked like she’d finish in the middle of the pack at 12th place. But in a wild moment of live TV, it was revealed that Israel got by far the most fan votes, rocketing Yuval into the #1 spot. Was there justice for Yuval after all? Soon after, with the final tabulations recorded, Austria just snuck ahead to win the competition. Although Ricky Bobby⁶ once said “If you ain’t first, you’re last,” second place was an amazing result. It was reassuring to see that not everyone was consumed with irrational hatred for someone based on her nationality. But the story wasn’t over. Immediately after Israel came oh-so-close to winning, certain delegations began calling to change the voting rules while others accused Israel of hacking the vote because apparently Jews control not only the banks and the media, but song competitions too! Spain, who famously expelled all their Jews back in 1492, is now trying to expel Israel from Eurovision. Gotta admire the consistency!

Villainizing someone because of the country they come from is wrong. Full stop. Nobody chooses to be born in the first place. We just exist because mom and dad got horny. On top of that, we don’t choose where mom and dad got horny. But we all just came into being at some point, in some place, and entered the society and culture that surrounded us. And every society contains multitudes. There will always be liberals and conservatives, religious and secular, Yankees fans and Mets fans. Nobody from a given country can be boiled down to one thing.

So let’s hope that next year, people can remember that a song competition is about the songs. It will certainly be interesting if Israel picks the aforementioned Israeli-Arab Valerie Hamaty, because that’ll confuse the haters more than their little brains can handle. Or if they pick Red Band, will Kermit the Frog be brave and rally behind his fellow felt-faced friends? I pray that by next year’s show, this war will be over, the hostages will be free, Gazans will be liberated from Hamas, and Israel can sing a light-hearted song about Bamba.⁷

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2. Now I’m imagining a superhuman child of Kelly Clarkson and Michael Phelps, but I digress.

3. Who can forget the classic, “Jaja Ding Dong”

4. That’ll stop Putin!

5. Then it’d be the “Vision Contest,” which I suppose would determine the world’s best optometrist.

6. Wow, another Will Ferrell reference?

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