With radical Islam baring its teeth, the anti-Israel boycott is much bigger than Eurovision - Stuart Fawcett

Yuval is not some abstract political symbol. She survived the Nova festival terrorist attack on 7 October 2023 - a day when Islamist extremists invaded Israel and massacred more than 1,200 people in their homes and at a music festival, simultaneously dragging over 250 hostages into Gaza. Having visited the sites of those atrocities, I truly admire her courage for taking to the Eurovision stage at all.

This all matters because Israel is not a “rogue state” to be conveniently shunned; it is a democracy in the same broad family as ours - part of the Western alliance, often contributing to Europe’s security, from the Middle East, in the face of terrorism.

When Western broadcasters single Israel out for cultural boycotts, they are not just taking a swipe at one country. They chip away at the idea that democracies have the right to defend themselves against terror and embolden those who want to turn Israel into a battering ram against Western democratic values.

Look at what actually happened in Basel this year. Israel’s entry, New Day Will Rise, did not just “do well” - it won the televote across Europe.

Spanish, Dutch and British viewers gave Israel the maximum 12 points; Irish viewers gave 10; even in Slovenia, the public handed Israel six.

The same broadcasters who are now refusing to share a stage with Israel are the ones whose audiences voted Israel towards the top only months ago. If that is not a sign of institutional capture - broadcasters drifting away from the public they serve - I do not know what is.

Broadcasters in Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia claim they are “de-politicising” the contest - that Israel is turning Eurovision into a political platform. I would argue they are the ones doing the politicising.

Their case collapses the moment you listen to New Day Will Rise. Yuval’s song is not a soapbox speech. It is about waking up the morning after horror and trying to believe that life will go on, and about hostages who still have not come home.

In Britain, we instinctively understand that songs can carry national trauma and resolve. We’ll Meet Again became an enduring anthem from the Second World War not because it was “neutral”, but because it spoke directly to people living under bombardment, uncertainty and collective loss.

For a sense of the reality behind this supposedly “politicised” entry, consider this: at the very moment Israelis were sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to hear whether New Day Will Rise had won, air-raid sirens were sounding across Israel as a missile strike was inbound.

Yet even then, ordinary viewers in Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, and here in Britain judged the song on its merits. They answered the simple question: Is this a good song? The answer was overwhelmingly YES.

British viewers went further and gave Israel the full 12 points in the public vote - it was our favourite song on the night. That is why the public vote matters in our democracy. It forces powerful institutions to heed what their own people actually think and respond.

I am pleased that, for once, the BBC has ended up broadly where the British public are: recognising that Israel deserves as fair a hearing as any other nation and backing its right to participate.

By contrast, broadcasters in Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia have cancelled their own people’s chance to do the same.

This charade is, fundamentally, about more than Eurovision. The late Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, put it starkly: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.”

If we shrug when Israel is singled out and boycotted, we should not be surprised when that same capture is leveraged against other Western democracies.