Israel came close to victory in the world’s most important music contest, boosted by a massive popular vote that contrasts with its weakened external image. Neither the thousands of protests against the genocide in Gaza, nor the boycott by five countries —Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Iceland— managed to snatch the second place in Eurovision from the Israeli Noam Bettan.
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The participation of ‘Michelle’, its pop ballad in Hebrew, French, and English, has sparked a great debate among members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), responsible for organizing the 70th edition of the contest in Vienna, with various nations in favor of expelling Israel, as was done with Russia in 2022 due to the invasion of Ukraine.
On the night of the show, the beach of Tel Aviv was packed with Israeli eurofans, aware that the song contest is another of the multiple battlefronts of their country. Unlike other parts of Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox and religious population has more weight, the Tel Aviv character is marked by secularity, mandatory military service, surfing, and specialty coffee shops.
The most queer and nationalist Tel Aviv was embodied that evening by the drag queen Ziona Patriot, master of ceremonies of the public event organized to watch the contest. Her stage name, she tells La Vanguardia, comes from love for her country: “I am a Zionist and a patriot; and I believe we should bring patriots and Zionists to Eurovision,” she states.
Some Israeli flags and kilos of glitter danced when Bettan, third on the list of performances, stepped onto the stage. But the euphoria faded at the end of the three minutes of the song, when most attendees began to leave the venue in search of other parties. The tension only increased in the last minutes of the program, in which Israel’s victory seemed possible. However, the televote bar awarded the trophy in the form of a microphone to Bulgaria, represented by the artist Dara and her ‘Bangaranga’.
Despite the disappointment over the final result, Israeli authorities praised their flag bearer as a national hero. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz congratulated Noam Bettan on his silver medal despite “the campaign of incitement and defamation” by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. “On behalf of the defense system and the IDF soldiers, I congratulate Noam Bettan for his enormous achievement in obtaining second place in Eurovision, @sanchezcastejon and his allies,” Katz said on X. “The people of Israel live!” he added.
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Although Israel has competed in Eurovision since 1973, the contest, according to Ziona Patriot, “gained importance here after Noa Kirel’s song Unicorn,” who participated in 2023 just a few months before the attacks of October 7 and the start of the offensive on the Gaza Strip. “Then the war came and watching Eurovision started to become something Zionist,” says the drag artist.
According to an investigation by the New York Times published this week, the Israeli government partially funded an ostentatious campaign over the last three years to mobilize votes, costing at least one million dollars, which apparently encouraged voting for Israel as a show of political support. Ziona Patriot describes how attention to Eurovision has gained weight: “Even my mother watches Eurovision now, and she never used to. Everyone wants Israel to win. And also Jews all over the world vote for Israel.”
The feeling from Tel Aviv is that showcases like Eurovision fight against the growing unrest against their country. “Of course (the withdrawal of five European countries from the contest) is because of their hatred of Israel. There is no other reason. But if they don’t want us, let them leave. We stay. If Spain and the Netherlands are not here, who wins? We win, because we are still here and they are not,” Ziona concludes.
The party in Tel Aviv ends on a bittersweet note, with a young man in military service crossing security control with his standard semi-automatic rifle hanging from his arm. The ceasefire with Iran has cleared the city’s sky of missiles and air raid alarms. And while the musical battle ends by the sea, the percussion of bombings strikes the same coast: to the north, Lebanon; to the south, Gaza. And in between, the endless war over the narrative.
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