ISRAEL swept to victory at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, relying on the popular public vote to secure the 529-point result that saw the controversial state named as 2019’s host.
Whilst you could be forgiven for getting swept up by the emotion and chutzpah in Netta’s acceptance speech, which thanked voters for “choosing different” and for “accepting the differences between us” before finishing with “I love my country; next time in Jerusalem!” what does it mean to choose different?
The answer came not 48 hours later when 60 Palestinian civilians were needlessly gunned down and killed by Israeli snipers at the Gaza border fence. If you ask Israel why this happened, the answer is, as is tradition, that the nation reserves the right to defend its borders. There is no way that a grassroots protest is a threat to national security.
Palestinians aspiring to reclaim their homeland view East Jerusalem as their capital city, and this is no secret. Trump would have been well aware of the city’s significance to Palestinians when he ordered the US embassy be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Instead of fulfilling the role of political fire extinguisher, it appears that Trump has become the arsonist.
Since the creation of Israel in 1948, an estimated 5.1 million Palestinians have been killed. The World Health Organisation has provided figures from the May 14 attack, suggesting that eight of the 60 killed were children under the age of 16. WHO further advised that thousands were injured by live fire, by shrapnel and by gas inhalation. Poignant as the 70-year anniversary of Israeli independence may be, let’s not forget that May 15 is the Palestinian day of remembrance, Nakba (catastrophe), when the 700,000-plus Palestinians were forcibly displaced.
Lack of US and Israeli respect for Palestinian life isn’t new, but do you care?
I speak directly to those members of the LGBT community that are fans of Eurovision, because my fellow members of this community know what it’s like to be threatened and oppressed based on nothing more than a facet of our identities that we cannot change.
Eurovision has unofficially become a celebrated part of LGBT culture, with recent acts championing same-gender relations. Indeed, a casual camera sweep of any Eurovision crowd will inevitably throw up images of a sea of Pride flags.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Eurovision Broadcasting Union (EBU) denied broadcast rights to China for this year’s contest because Chinese policies would have necessitated the censorship of Ireland’s dancers – two men depicting a romantic relationship. The EBU was applauded by the LGBT community for its stance.
Perhaps a little more jarring was the booing that met the Russian presenter announcing the results – a hark back to the days of Eurovision 2014 when their act was booed as a rebellion against Putin’s anti-gay laws.
If Eurovision is heralded as a beacon for acceptance, diversity and liberation, surely we owe the same respect to the Palestinians? Instead of standing back and shrugging off the Israeli apartheid as “not my problem”. Remember that it was illegal to be gay in the UK in the not-too-distant past. Movements for change rely on the support of allies, and by attending Eurovision 2019 in Israel or by watching the live broadcast, we only help fund the country’s economy of oppression.
My plea is that you consider boycotting the event, because we need to stand against state-sanctioned slaughter now in the same way we had to stand against state-sanctioned homophobia until recently.
Nothing changes if we stay silent and the LGBT community knows that more than most.
Lucy Drummond
Clackmannanshire
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