Eurovision
Paul Weller, IDLES, Dry Cleaning and more back No Music For Genocide Eurovision boycott
The open letter - issued in collaboration with the BDS Movement - has also been signed by Massive Attack, Kneecap, Young Fathers and more.
No Music For Genocide - the cultural boycott movement which has called on artists and labels to remove their music from streaming platforms in Israel, amidst its ongoing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza - has launched an official boycott of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, in which Israel are still permitted to participate.
An open letter is calling on fans, performers, broadcasters and crew members to refuse to participate or platform Eurovision 2026, which is due to take place in Vienna next month, until the European Broadcasting Union bans Israel’s public broadcaster, KAN, in the same way that Russia was banned following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
So far, the letter has been signed by a number of international artists including Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Kneecap, Hot Chip, IDLES, Primal Scream, Young Fathers, Black Country New Road, Nadine Shah, and Dry Cleaning, as well as some former Eurovision finalists.
Of the initiative, No Music For Genocide have said: “While many of us in the industry make light of Eurovision or doubt our own power as cultural producers, genocidal Israel’s leaders speak openly about the contest’s geopolitical value. NMFG stands with and amplifies the incredible grassroots organizing efforts across Europe to boycott Eurovision until Israel is banned.”
You can sign the open letter here, and read it in full below.
OPEN LETTER:
This May, millions of people are expected to tune in to the 70th Eurovision Song Contest. For the third consecutive year, they’ll find Israel celebrated onstage despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza, while Russia remains banned for its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
As musicians and cultural workers, many living within the reaches of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), we reject Eurovision being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians.
We stand in solidarity with Palestinian calls for public broadcasters, performers, screening party organisers, crew, and fans to boycott Eurovision until the EBU bans complicit Israeli broadcaster KAN.
We applaud the principled withdrawals of the Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Slovenian, and Dutch broadcasters, and the many national selection finalists committing to refuse to go to Eurovision. Just as artists stood against oppression in South Africa, we stand together now.
Apartheid Israel’s president Isaac Herzog – named in South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice for inciting to genocide – has played a leading role in lobbying broadcasters not to ban Israel from the contest, the world’s most-watched live music event.
The EBU’s hypocritical responses to Russia’s and Israel’s crimes have removed any illusion of Eurovision’s claimed “neutrality”. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would “bring the competition into disrepute”.
Yet more than 30 months of genocide in Gaza – alongside ethnic cleansing and land theft in the besieged West Bank – aren’t considered sufficient to apply the same policy to Israel.
How can any performer or Eurovision fan in good conscience participate at the contest’s next edition in Austria amidst US-Israeli plans for hyper-surveilled concentration camps in ‘New Gaza’? There are moments in time when passive silence is not an option.
We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.
As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry.
No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.
Signed: Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Kneecap, Hot Chip, Of Monsters and Men, IDLES, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Mogwai, Black Country New Road, Nadine Shah, Dry Cleaning, David Holmes, Salute, Vacations + more
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