The Israeli prime minister went on Instagram a few minutes before the final of the Eurovision Song Contest started to tell viewers and radio listeners to vote for Yuval Raphael's "New Day Will Rise," the Israeli entry, and vote the maximum twenty times (since you have to have a valid credit card or debit card to vote online, that would set you back around 20 euros, roughly a little over $20 in US currency)--other Israeli social media accounts joined in and the government bought ad time on YouTube--the song did win the so-called "televote" but did not win the whole thing, due to being far down the list of the votes of the industry panels from each European Broadcasting Union member country (their choice, the song from Austria, "Wasted Love" by JJ and his ultra falsetto, won, but barely)--needless to say, some EBU members are calling for an investigation and to have Israel kicked out of future Eurovisions, as Russia was kicked out in 2023 after they invaded the Ukraine:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/arts/music/eurovision-israel-votes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.J08.37wA.PktpET56Dd5W&smid=url-share What Netanyahu may have forgotten is that the winner's reward, other than the publicity, is hosting Eurovision next year. Unless Gaza gets settled (yeah, like that's gonna happen), there are a lot of people who might've decided that they have better things to do in May 2026 than go to Tel Aviv for Eurovision. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/29d0f37d-c29a-4555-88e4-ef59b5d0f519n%40googlegroups.com.
