I mean, there’s obviously something going on. Public sentiment towards Ukraine is still strong and you still see yellow and blue flags flying but sympathy for Israel was never as strong and it’s since massively died off given how they’ve reacted. The vote is clearly not a reflection of genuine public opinion. But what’s going on, are certain people just voting loads of times?
It’s weird they’re in a European singing contest to begin with…
Ehh, the North African and Mediterranean Asian countries are all eligible to enter and just choose not to. It has nevsr been strictly European. There are much better reasons to not invite Israel
Didnt they leave to boycott something something?
I think Lebanon is the only one that has officially said they weren’t joining in because of Israel. They had an entry prepared for 2005 but the EBU wouldn’t agree to edit out Israel’s parts for Lebanese broadcast. It might still be part of the reasoning for the others, but it could just be a lack of interest too. I honestly don’t know. Morocco actually did compete in 1980 but did terribly and have not come back since. They are all still members of the EBU and therefore eligible to enter if they choose to
It’s not really “European” exactly; it’s a competition for member nations of the European Broadcast Union, and eligibility criteria for joining that is to be in the “European Broadcasting Area”; which, long story short, includes the whole Mediterranean area.
Is Australia in the European Broadcasting Area?
No, they’re a weird special case who have been invited for no obvious reason other than that it makes for a good Eurovision (which, to be fair, is a decent reason).
Everyone else who participates meets the normal criteria though (Israel included).
The EBU is open to broadcasters in the ITU Europe region. These regions are in no small part defined by the British Empire’s telegraph routes. Europe then being Europe, and the nations in which the Mediterranean shore stations of the telegraph network were located, and then fill in the gaps.