Greater Middle East (bbabo.net), - At the international Eurovision song contest, Israel will be represented by 20-year-old singer from Tel Aviv Eden Golan. This is reported by The Times of Israel.
She received the highest marks from expert judges and spectators.
“I was born in Israel and I feel truly at home here. There is nothing that would excite me more than representing our country this year at Eurovision...It is a dream come true, especially this year when it means even more,” she said.
The publication notes that Eden Golan was born in Israel, then lived with her parents in Russia for 13 years - her father was offered a job in Moscow, and returned to her home country two years ago, after the start of a special military operation.
The song for the competition will be selected next month, but national broadcaster KAN, which is responsible for Israel's participation in the competition, insists that the lyrics must include Hebrew lines "in light of the difficult period."
In 2018, Eden took part in the fifth season of the show “The Voice.Children,” where she joined Pelageya’s team and reached the finals. She has released several solo tracks in Russian. Already in Israel, Golan won the national talent show Hakochav Haba (“Next Star”).
As bbabo.net reported, musicians from three countries previously called for Israel to be removed from participation in the competition. Thus, musicians from Finland initiated a collection of signatures demanding that Israel be excluded from the number of participating countries in the Eurovision 2024 song contest due to aggressive actions in the Gaza Strip.
Members of the Association of Composers and Lyricists of Iceland (FTT) called for a boycott of Israel at the competition. However, the Eurovision organizers do not intend to exclude Israeli representatives from the number of participants. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said it wanted to maintain the competition's status as "a non-politics event that unites audiences around the world through music." The organization also noted that sports federations continue to accept Israeli athletes at major competitions.
Then Swedish musicians came up with the initiative to ban Israel’s participation in the competition.
“We believe that by allowing Israeli participation, the EBU demonstrates double standards that undermine the credibility of the organization,” said the text of the statement, which was signed by 1,005 artists.
Swedish artists made a similar demand to SVT, the Swedish TV channel that will broadcast the competition. In addition, members of the European Parliament from the Spanish party Podemos (“We Can”) joined the musicians. MPs are also asking RTVE (Spanish State Broadcasting Company), which is a member of the EBU, to join other European broadcasters in promoting Israel's exclusion from the competition.
The day before, EBU Director General Noel Curren noted that the organization “is aware of many voices that call for Israel to be excluded from this year’s competition.” But “despite this,” Israel will be allowed to participate because the Israeli broadcaster, “public broadcaster KAN, has fulfilled all the conditions for this competition.”
Commenting on the question of the exclusion of Israel by analogy with Russia, which was blocked from the competition immediately after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, the head of the EBU noted that comparing military conflicts is not within the competence of a media organization.
bbabo.Net