My limited understanding of Eurovision is that it has always been rigged.
this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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They changed the rules in 2016, before then it genuinely was a direct democratic vote
I'll give you 3 answers, you pick your favourite:
- logical: Fans of Israel's song/ supporters of their government only have 1 song to vote for, everyone else has 25 to choose between
- cynical: there are zionists all over the world, who may be a minority in a population overall, but they all come out of the woodwork and pull together at events like this
- conspiracy: Mosad, the Israeli spy branch of government, set up a bunch of burner phone numbers all over Europe and used those to farm votes for Israel, in order to push the narrative "look, the general public all over Europe support us" (75% of the Italian public vote that went to Israel in 2024 came from newly connected numbers)
You chose which you'd like to believe the most
Fourth reason: Apolitical. Does not know anything going on in the world and likes the song or does not care because it doesn't concern them.
Do you have a source for the 3rd point? I would like to read more about it.
Ok I've spent a hell of a lot of time trying to find it for you but can't anymore.
Maybe I'm having a case of the Mandela effect, who knows.
There is definitely something fishy going on. For a song that was apparently so popular with the public last year, it amazingly dropped out of top 20 streamed songs within days. Keep an eye on the streaming charts this year. As Israel's entry was apparently the most popular with the public this year, it would make sense for it to stay in top 20 for quite some time. Only time will tell
I'll see if I can find what I read last year, but may take some time
Israel supporters only have to vote for one country while the other votes are split between 25 others.
You can vote 20 times from any one phone number, and they don’t check if two numbers (or 200) are owned by the same person. And SIM cards aren’t that expensive. Goosing a Eurovision contestant’s vote would be relatively cheap and involve no breaking of any actual rules, let alone laws.
Maybe when the European Digital ID scheme comes in, they can use this to restrict votes per person, though this would still leave countries like the UK, Switzerland, Armenia/Georgia/Azerbaijan and Australia open to manipulation, unless they locked down their voting similarly. And you want something like Eurovision to be relatively frictionless, as it’s meant to be a party rather than a serious exercise in democratic governance.
I think people who support Israel really really support Israel. UK in general has lost interest in Eurovision as everyone hates UK. So fewer voters with one agenda voted a lot vs a few pensioners splitting their vote between macciato and those handsome country men with guitars.
The UK performed were robbed this year. 0 televote points? Not warranted.
The UK have something of a history when it comes to popular music. Quite frankly, taking Eurovision seriously is beneath us.
The UK public at large is not interested in Eurovision, beyond the camp/kitschy tv broadcast where the tradition is that the presenter basically takes the piss.
- Ukraine's song wasn't particularly good this year*, which will have made it harder for people to support if they cared about the integrity of Eurovision as a song competition.
- Some people will just vote for whichever country most recently had a major tragedy and the initial attack on Ukraine was less recent than the initial attack on Israel. They won't necessarily think about anything that's happened other than that.
- The Israel's contestant survived the October the 7th attack narrative has been pushed pretty hard, so that might have encouraged Israel supporters to watch Eurovision when they'd normally not have bothered. There wasn't anything equivalent to draw in Ukraine supporters who don't normally engage with Eurovision.
- People voting for a particular country are going to have a much easier time than people voting for songs they like - there's only one Israel, but there are plenty of pop songs to split the pop fan vote.
- If you watch/listen to a vox pop on the news, there are an astounding number of people who believe either that Israel have only killed armed Hamas combatants, have done a minimal proportionate response solely to rescue hostages, or have the right to ethnically cleanse Palestine because they think Hamas attacked first with no provocation and don't think ethnic cleansing is bad.
*the few times I've watched Eurovision, I've not agreed with the public or jury, so my definition of not particularly good might not be relevant.
Why is a middle east country even in Eurovision?
Because they paid good money for those votes
(Well, technically, actually evil money)
the IHRA seemingly works really well.
Don't vote "any other", all of you commit to one before hand.
Those I know who are into Eurovision are boycotting it while Israel is allowed to attend. So among the political viewers the anti-israel vote has mostly self-purged (and the remaining non-boycotters anti-israel votes are split amongst the other 30-or-so entries), while the pro-israel political vote still remains in the competition.
It's much easier to vote for one country to win (like with Ukraine, or Israel I suppose) than it is to vote so that only one doesn't win (because the votes will be split with no clear opponent).
But I'm just guessing, I'm not ajour with Eurovision politics.