Key Points
- Australian singer Montaigne has called for Israel to be banned from Eurovision over its bombardment of Gaza.
- Finnish and Icelandic musicians have also signed petitions calling for Israel to be disqualified.
- Over 23,000 people have been killed in the Hamas-Israel war since 7 October, with many more displaced and injured.
Australian singer Montaigne is calling for Israel to be barred from competing at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest over .
Montaigne, who represented Australia at Eurovision in 2021, shared a petition organised by Bea Quinn and an open letter to the European Broadcasting Union asking for Israel's removal from the competition.
The singer likened Israel's bombardment of Gaza to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in Russia's exclusion from the competition in 2022.
"There is no reason why the same action shouldn't be applicable to Israel, a nation which has committed such cruel and numerous atrocities not just since October 2023 but since the first Nakba in 1948," Montaigne wrote.
The 'Nakba', Arabic for 'catastrophe', was a mass exodus where some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the lead-up to and during the bloody 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
"We are now seeing a second Nakba in real time. Such inhumanity is not part of the Eurovision spirit — it is, after all, a song contest which arose from the desire to unite nations in love and cooperation," Montaigne wrote.
"You do not get to be part of such an event when you murder civilians and children in droves."
Montaigne's comments come as Finnish and Icelandic artists also call for Israel's exclusion from Eurovision.
More than 1,400 Finnish musicians and industry professionals signed and released a petition calling on the Finnish Broadcasting Company to boycott the contest if Israel is allowed to compete.
In December, Iceland's Association of Composers and Lyricists also released a petition and statement urging members not to participate in the contest, and called on the Icelandic national broadcaster not to participate unless Israel is disqualified or withdraws.
Israel in 1973 became the first non-European contestant in Eurovision, having been granted permission to participate due to it being a member of the European Broadcasting Union, which runs the song contest.
Three months of Israel's bombardment of Gaza have laid much of the coastal enclave to waste, killing more than 23,000 people according to the Gaza health ministry, and driving nearly the entire 2.3 million population of Palestinians from their homes.
An Israeli blockade has sharply restricted supplies of food, fuel and medicine, creating what the United Nations describes as a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Israel says its only means to defend itself is by eradicating Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, whose fighters stormed through Israeli communities on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 200 hostages.
The war between Hamas and Israel is the latest escalation in a long-standing conflict.
Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group, which has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.
Hamas' stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state and stop the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. A UN Commission of Inquiry in 2022 described Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories as unlawful under international law.
- With Reuters via the Australian Associated Press.
