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  "path": "/eurovision-is-running-out-of-time",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-19T14:38:58.000Z",
  "site": "https://defector.com",
  "tags": [
    "Music",
    "Politics",
    "bulgaria",
    "dara",
    "eurovision",
    "gaza",
    "goodbye eurovision i loved you well and yet cannot watch you anymore",
    "israel",
    "contentious",
    "largest",
    "New York Times",
    "600 times,",
    "pulled out",
    "The Code",
    "Instagram"
  ],
  "textContent": "This weekend, history repeated itself on the unnecessarily pyrotechnic stage of Eurovision as singers from Israel and another country waited to hear which would be crowned the winner of the increasingly contentious song contest. In the end, the Bulgarian banger \"Bangaranga\" by singer Dara edged out Israel's \"Michelle\" by singer Noam Bettan. Last year, Austrian singer JJ served as a similar spoiler with his operatic \"Wasted Love.\" Now Eurovision, it would seem, plans to proceed as if everything were normal, announcing the competition will take place next year in Bulgaria. But, of course, something is rotten in the state of Eurovision, a competition where many fans find themselves in the harrowing position of rooting not for their favorite song, but for anyone but Israel.\n\nIn recent years, artists, fans, and governments have protested the competition's inclusion of Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza. The ongoing boycott against the competition is the largest in its 70-year history. Last September, the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the song contest, promised to vote on Israel's participation. But the vote was postponed after a ceasefire was announced, per the _New York Times_. When the broadcasters gathered again in December, after Israel violated the ceasefire nearly 600 times, they skirted the vote once again through a bureaucratic loophole that allowed Israel to remain in the competition.\n\nIn response, five countries—the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, and Spain, one of the \"big five\" countries in Eurovision—pulled out. The Swiss singer Nemo, who won the contest in 2024 with \"The Code,\" a song about discovering their nonbinary identity, returned their trophy to Geneva. \"Israel's continued participation, during what the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry has concluded to be a genocide, shows a clear conflict between those ideals and the decision made by the [European Broadcasting Union],\" Nemo said in a statement posted to Instagram. \"The contest was repeatedly used to soften the image of a state accused of severe wrongdoing, all while the EBU insists Eurovision is 'non-political,'\" they continued.",
  "title": "Eurovision Is Running Out Of Time"
}