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The Eurovision Song Contest is an international music festival hosted by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Since 1956, singers have competed against each other for musical laurels — and the chance to host the contest the next year.
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This year’s event, in Malmo, Sweden, has been marred by protests around the inclusion of Israeli singer Eden Golan. Organizers asked her to change the name of her song, originally titled October Rain, which was seen by some as a reference to the October attacks on Israel by Hamas. She complied, changed the title and tweaked some of the lyrics. Her entry is now titled Hurricane.
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That didn’t stop a massive protest. Police reported more than 10,000 people, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, marched though the city in a pro-Palestine protest that demanded organizers drop Israel from the contest.
(While Israel isn’t a European nation, it has competed in Eurovision in the past because it’s part of the EBU.)
So much for a contest that describes itself on its website as “United By Music.” There’s harmony — unless someone mentions atrocities by Hamas. Then they must leave.
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This could be a harbinger for the Olympic Games, which will take place this summer in Paris. The Olympics are supposed to foster peace and goodwill between nations, but they’re often fiercely political. We expect the same kind of massive anti-Israeli demonstrations.
How quickly the world forgets the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics. Eight terrorists from Black September, a group associated with the Palestinian organization Fatah, broke into the Olympic Village carrying Kalashnikov rifles and grenades in duffel bags.
In that attack and the subsequent botched rescue attempt by German police, 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in cold blood.
Protesters in Malmo, and likely in Paris, have forgotten all that.
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The 2022 Winter Olympics went ahead in Beijing, with barely a whisper about China’s treatment of its Uyghurs. Human rights groups have accused China of imprisoning more than a million Uyghurs in “re-education” camps. But the Games went ahead anyway.
It was Hamas who triggered the war in Gaza. If they returned the surviving hostages, it could end.
Instead, protesters blame Israel — the only country whose athletes have been targeted by terrorists in the past century at the Games.
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