Israeli candidate Eden Golan wins her ticket for the final of the competition, despite controversies over her participation

Israel will be well represented in the Eurovision final. Singer Eden Golan, 20, won her ticket during the second semi-final organized Thursday May 9 in Malmö (Sweden), by performing her song Hurricane, a title that had been partially rewritten and retitled. The organizers of Eurovision had not validated his first song October rainwidely seen as a reference to the victims of the attack carried out by Palestinian Hamas in Israel on October 7, finding it too politically charged.

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Before the semi-final, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a video message to wish “good luck” to Eden Golan. “You know, you’ve already won.”he had written to her. “Not only are you proudly and admirably participating in Eurovision, but you are successfully confronting a horrible wave of anti-Semitism”. The words of encouragement came after thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Malmö to protest Israel’s participation in the song contest, expressing outrage over the war in Gaza.

Israel’s participation in the competition, the final of which will be held on Saturday, has been contested in view of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with several petitions across Europe calling for its exclusion. At the end of March, candidates from nine countries, including Switzerland’s Nemo, one of the favorites, called for a lasting ceasefire. In 2022, Russian broadcasting companies were excluded from the European Broadcasting Union, which oversees the competition, in the wake of the war in Ukraine.