Sweden: These artists want Israel banned from Eurovision! | SVT’s response: “The EBU decides!”
As you may have read in one of our previous articles, Expressen was able to reveal this weekend that more than 1.000 Swedish artists are demanding that Israel be banned from Eurovision. This is due to the ongoing Middle-Eastern conflict between Israel and Hamas, which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
Today, the list of all the artists was published by Expressen, including Eric Saade, Marlena Ernman, Timbuktu, also Medina and Jacqline, who are competing in Melodifestivalen this year, have also signed. Also the global star Robyn joined the petition. You can have a look on the full list of artists who signed here!
“Serious war crimes”
There have been calls to ban Israel from Eurovision 2024, like 1000 Swedish musicians that signed today a petition to the EBU against Israel outside NRK right during the first two weeks of MGP. In Iceland, more than 500 artists signed a petition asking RÚV to withdraw from the contest, while Silvia Night signed an open letter to the EBU asking to ban Israel. In Finland, 1300 artists signed a petition asking for Israel to be removed. The British representative Olly Alexander has also shared in public his opinion against Israel. Also just recently Montaigne signed an open letter to the EBU asking the ban of Israel from the contest and Ben Dolic joined her by doing the same. Now 1000 Swedish artists are demanding that Israel be stopped from participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. The petition reads:
“For more than 100 days, we have witnessed the Israeli army committing what leading human rights organizations describe as grave war crimes. The Eurovision Song Contest began as a peace project with the ambition to unite countries and citizens through music. Allowing Israel to participate undermines not only the spirit of the contest but the entire public service mission. It also sends the signal that governments can commit war crimes without consequences. That is why we appeal to the EBU: Exclude Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest 2024.“
SVT’s answer: “The EBU decides!”
SVT has, through Åsa Barsness, HR and Communications Director, published a response to the demands directed at them, on a press release:
“It is the EBU that decides who participates in the competition and as the host country, SVT relates to what the EBU decides. The human suffering in this deeply complex conflict is horrific. No one can be unmoved by the conditions in Gaza right now, or by the Hamas attack in Israel. We are also concerned about developments. We understand and respect that groups make their voices heard.”
She further writes that SVT has a dialogue with the EBU and hopes to be able to carry out Eurovision in the “best way, with the vision of uniting in music.“
Eurovision will be held in Malmö in May this year and Karin Karlsson is responsible for the city’s initiative. She talked about how they view the artists’ petition, to Expressen:
“We can’t influence whether Israel is in or not, that’s the EBU’s responsibility. We have said all along that everyone is welcome in Malmö.”
Source: Expressen, SVT
Photo: Alex Ljungdahl / Expressen
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It’s kind of ironic that musicians want to boycott Israel where young people at a MUSIC FESTIVAL were brutally murdered, raped and kidnapped. Why condemn Israel which is fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad? If terrorists were on the border of Sweden where people were burned alive, babies beheaded, and girls were raped and tortured you would be fighting to destroy the terrorists and for your survival! The Palestinians in Gaza should not have helped Hamas kill 1,200 innocent people.
Because in the same competition where Russia was banned for the Ukraine war it is hypocrisy of the highest degree – since January of 2022, the Ukraine-Russia war has killed ~500 innocent children. Since OCTOBER OF 2023, 11,500 Gazan children have been killed. Do you understand how many innocent youth that is? Yet guess which country is banned from Eurovision?
It just shows that Eurovision don’t actually care about the wars that countries are face and innocent lives lost, they care about the impact, backlash, publicity and the money.