‘WITH THE Eurovision Song Contest taking place on Saturday, the year-long campaign to boycott the competition in Israel is ramping up,’ Zoe Lawlor from the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) said yesterday.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is scheduled to take place in Tel Aviv following Israel’s win at the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song ‘Toy’, performed by Netta.
This will be the third time that Israel has hosted the event (previously in 1979 and 1999) and it will be held at Expo Tel Aviv, the city’s convention centre, and will consist of two semi-finals, tonight and 16 May, with the final on Saturday 18 May.
Lawlor said: ‘The year since Israel’s entry, Netta Barzilai, won – has been bookended by massacres of Palestinians.
‘Just days after her victory last May, Israeli forces deliberately shot dead 62 Palestinians in Gaza, and just this week 23 Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and three children, were killed by airstrikes.
‘Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza has continued since the start of the Great March of Return leaving hundreds dead and thousands severely wounded.
‘Anyone wishing to show solidarity with the Palestinian people as they continue their struggle for freedom against Israeli apartheid, occupation and war crimes has the responsibility to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This applies equally to the Eurovision.’
