Opinion
What drives the Eurovision boycott over the Jewish state is something old and dark
Apparently, the innocent Dutch viewers must be shielded from contamination by the wicked Israeli soul
December 9, 2025 14:29
3 min read
Apparently, the innocent Dutch viewers must be shielded from contamination by the wicked Israeli soul
December 9, 2025 14:29Apart from its libraries, cathedrals, theatres and museums, Europe is also defined by the Eurovision Song Contest. To the uninitiated, identifying the true masters of this spectacle is near impossible, yet they exist: every year they serve up the continent’s most outlandish performers – whether dressed as devils, monsters or simply farm animals. Genuine singers, without frills, do appear on occasion. They tend to win, and then embark on profitable tours for the grateful public who, for a few hours, have revelled in Europe’s shared love of bad taste, limited talent and outright lunacy.
Europe has no event in which it can present itself as a coherent whole, so Eurovision must suffice as our ersatz celebration of unity. Whether that is worse than having none at all is debatable. The real objection is that the lavish circus surrounding the performer selected to represent the Netherlands – my country – is funded with taxpayers’ money. I assume much the same applies elsewhere. Europe’s broadcasting mandarins regard Eurovision as a cultural imperative, insisting that vulgarity is the new norm. It represents one of the final stages in the decline of the artistic traditions that once shaped Europe – perhaps the very last stage before the continent becomes one large museum for Asian tourists.
Bad taste often goes hand in hand with stupidity: ignorance, disrespect for tradition, an utter lack of nuance. Thus the Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS has discovered a convenient excuse to duck out of the 2026 contest. Because Israel is competing, even the one annual opportunity to celebrate Europe’s supposed unity is suddenly no longer worth showing up for.
How the Dutch broadcasting system is arranged is impossible to explain to sane people. Our public broadcaster consists of multiple supposedly independent, apolitical divisions – about as neutral as the BBC – and a swarm of semi-detached organisations filling airtime with their own pet projects.
According to its website, AVROTROS “makes culture accessible to every Dutch person, from young to old. Together we sing along with the songs in Beste zangers (Best singers), empathise with the contestants in Op zoek naar…(In search of…), laugh at the jokes in Dit Was Het Nieuws (This was the news), enjoy the collective experience of the Muziekfeest op het Plein (Music festival on the square, and cheer for ‘our’ artist at the (Junior) Eurovision Song Contest. Tastes differ, but it is the love of culture that brings us together.”
The titles obviously mean nothing to a British audience; but trust me, they are not worth cancelling an evening for. Still, “love of culture.” Who could object? Yet the leadership of AVROTROS now asserts that culture is desecrated if a Dutch singer shares a stage with an Israeli. Then all culture suddenly ends, and the innocent Dutch viewer must be shielded from contamination by the wicked Israeli soul. Hence AVROTROS declares it will neither broadcast the competition nor send a representative, lest they be tainted by proximity to the unclean. The excuses dutifully appeared in the media: Gaza suffers terribly; Israel restricts press access; and Israeli authorities have previously promoted their own performers.
Notably absent is any reference to October 7, 2023. A music festival was massacred by terrorists. Dancers, singers, dreamers – many of them LGBTQIA+ – were ritually slaughtered. Would it not be fitting to remember them at the world’s largest music competition? Apparently not. Unsurprisingly, the Dutch “expert juries” have in recent years awarded Israel virtually no points, even as the viewing public gave them twelve – the maximum. These juries – bearers of exquisite bad taste – had already descended into the abyss of moral obscenity by turning on Israel immediately after the Nova Festival massacre. This is not irony; it is absurdism – more Ionesco than Beckett.
The episode is instructive: Hamas and Qatari propaganda, laundered through much of the Dutch media, functions flawlessly. Gaza, which sent its fighters into Israel to commit genocide, is recast as the innocent victim of the bloodthirsty siblings of those murdered at Nova. The simple thought that Gaza might have avoided devastation by refraining from slaughtering Israelis – indeed, that every Palestinian civilian death is the direct responsibility of Hamas’s strategy of sacrificing its own people while hiding in terror tunnels is nowhere entertained.
The latest development is that NOS – the biggest element in the fragmented structure that is the Dutch public broadcaster – will televise the contest but still not send an artist. Israel is punished by Dutch absence – a proposition so absurd it could make the premise of a Mel Brooks film. At least, when the Israeli begins to sing, Dutch viewers will still have the chance to throw a slipper at the screen – should they be so inclined.
I have not yet used the word “antisemitism.” But when everything has been said and nothing understood, that’s where we inevitably arrive. Beneath the babble of arguments, the counterfeit “love of culture” and the preening morality lies something older, darker, and entirely familiar – a reflex that dares not speak its name, yet drives the whole performance.
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