Israel today threatened to abandon this year's Eurovision Song Contest if organizers reject the song's lyrics for political reasons.
Eden Golan and her song “October Rain” were selected to participate in the annual competition, which will be held this year in May in Malmö, Sweden.
The lyrics of the song, which in Portuguese means “autumn rain,” do not explicitly refer to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, but more recently there have been accusations of the inclusion of references in English and Hebrew to the victims.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the contest, must now decide whether the song's lyrics can be considered a political statement, which is prohibited in the contest.
The EBU said it was analyzing the song's lyrics and had not yet made a final decision.
“If a song is deemed unacceptable for any reason, broadcasters have the opportunity to submit a new song or lyrics in accordance with the competition rules,” the EBU added.
Israel's public broadcaster, Kan, announced this week that it is in talks with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) about the country's participation in the competition and that it has “no intention of replacing the song.”
The Kan network indicated that “if it is not approved by the European Broadcasting Union, Israel will not participate in the competition.”
The Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports, Miki Zohar, considered the possibility of banning the song a “scandal,” considering that it “only expresses the feelings of the people and the nation today” and that it is “not political.”
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out due to the attack launched by the Islamic movement on Israeli territory on October 7.
On that day, about 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, but also nearly 400 soldiers, according to the latest official Israeli figures. About 240 civilians and soldiers were kidnapped, and Israel indicates that more than 100 remain in the Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
In response, Israel, which had promised to destroy the Palestinian Islamic movement, bombed the Gaza Strip, where more than 29,000 people were killed, according to the local Hamas-led government, most of them women, children and teenagers.
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