Israel received only 52 points from the experts. With such a small number of points, it is almost impossible to win the Eurovision Song Contest, writes HS culture editor Juuso Määttänen.
Malmö
Before At the Eurovision final, great excitement was connected to whether Israel would win Eurovision. In the betting statistics, after Thursday’s semi-final, the country became the second biggest favorite to win. There was only Croatia ahead of them, who were believed to collect a bigger audience vote pot in the final than anyone else.
As I already wrote on ThursdayThursday’s semifinal made it clear that the Israeli representative Eden on the Golan has supporters all over Europe. In the final, this was confirmed. For example, Israel received a full 12 audience points from Finland. In addition to Finland, 14 other countries also gave Israel full audience points.
The past Eurovision week has been chaotic in many ways, and many of the strange twists of the last few days have been related to the tensions between the countries participating in Eurovision. There have been tensions especially between Israel and other countries, at first more between the lines, but towards the end also out loud.
of the war in Gaza and subject to genocide charges Israel’s participation in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest has been a topic of conversation that arouses strong emotions throughout the spring of May. For example, in Finland, more than a thousand musicians demanded Yle to boycott Eurovision if Israel participates in the song contest.
Eurovision this year’s slogan “United by music” has in many places seemed like beautiful words that had very little to do with reality. This year’s song contest did nothing good for European unity.
Before the final, the excitement over Israel’s possible victory was primarily related to the fact that throughout Eurovision, Malmö has been worried about the potential security risk caused by holding Eurovision in a city known for its security problems.
Thousands of people demonstrated against Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö during Eurovision Week, and it was likely that more protests would follow if Israel won the contest.
Many people of Palestinian background live in Malmö, and a terrorism expert of Magnus Ranstorp by there have also been problems related to anti-Semitism for a long time. The possibility that an Israeli victory would lead to fierce clashes in the city could not be ruled out either.
Eventually Israel came fifth in the Eurovision final. It got the second most audience points: 323. Only Croatia managed to collect barely more audience points (337).
The European Broadcasting Union EBU has wanted to emphasize repeatedly that Eurovision is a non-political event.
It has been very hard to believe in such moments, when, for example, Israel’s participation in Eurovision was confirmed only when the country’s president Isaac Herzog intervened in the Eurovision debate and demanded that his country’s public broadcasting company change the lyrics of Golan’s song so that it is accepted for Eurovision.
Despite the emphasis on non-politicism, there has been a lot of speculation about the political motives of people who either voted for Israel or, alternatively, did not vote. You will never know, because no justification is given in connection with Eurovisa points.
One a clear interpretation of the result can still be made. This year, the expert jury of Eurovision made sure that Israel does not win Eurovision.
In Eurovision, half of the points come from each country’s expert judges, which consist of five music industry professionals. The task of the juries is to evaluate the performances, among other things, on the success of the vocal performances, the originality of the songs and the effectiveness of the performances. Factors outside of the precisely given criteria should not have an effect on the points given by the jury.
Israel received a total of only 52 points from the expert ratings and was ranked 12th after the rating points. With such few rating points, winning the Eurovision final is almost impossible.
The current points system has been in use since 2016, and since then only in one year has the winner of the competition received less than 200 points from the track. It was in 2022, when Ukraine received 192 points from the race, but won clearly thanks to a huge avalanche of audience points.
Is good notice that Israel would not have won even if it had received up to 200 more points. The difference between the winner Switzerland and fifth place Israel was remarkably big: 216 points.
There was an equally big difference in how few town hall points and how many audience points Israel got. What makes it particularly remarkable is that Eden Golan’s vocal performance was clean and the performance polished to a classically elegant Eurovision song. One would have thought that it was exactly what the judges wanted.
That’s why you can’t help but think about how much this year’s score for Israel was also influenced by factors other than musical ones.
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