The death of bread and circuses

Iceland has become the fifth country to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest—following Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia—in the latest disruption to an event already scarred by controversy over Israel’s inclusion. The singalong has never been a stranger to politics; it suspended Russia immediately after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Yet after another year of devastation in Gaza, the frosty reception Israel received in 2024 has hardened into a multinational revolt that now threatens to tear the long-running competition apart, exposing the hollow pageantry of a “rules-based order” that increasingly serves as an ideological enforcer of Western power.

Rumours swirl of Belgium and Portugal preparing to follow suit. Icelandic icon Björk has publicly backed former contestant Páll Óskar’s boycott call. Spanish television announced its withdrawal while broadcasting harrowing footage of Palestinian civilians being bombed, spliced with images of this year’s Israeli entrant, Yuval Raphael. Natalija Gorščak, president of RTV Slovenia’s management board, framed the decision bluntly: “Balkan people know what war means, and we stand in solidarity with Gaza.” And overnight, adding to the weight of the boycott, 2024 winner Nemo handed back their trophy, citing ‘Israel’s continued participation’ as the reason for the decision. 

The rift has been widening since the charged final in Basel last May. Boos rained down on Raphael, Palestinian flags rippled through the crowd, and the jury delivered deliberately low scores—only for a mysteriously massive public televote (the highest of the night, almost matching Eden Golan’s record from 2024) to propel her song “New Day Will Rise” into a nail-biting second place. The same pattern—arena hostility drowned out by a flood of phone votes—played out the previous year as Israel’s slaughter escalated.

Seven months remain until the 2026 contest, yet the pressure is already unbearable. More countries are poised to join the boycott list. Germany—one of the largest suppliers of lethal weapons to Israel and, historically, rarely on the right side of moral crises—has taken the opposite stance. Chancellor Friedrich Merz called any debate about barring Israel “scandalous” and vowed that Germany would quit Eurovision if Israel were excluded.

Meanwhile, Israel—technically not in Europe—continues to enjoy its privileged status. Australia, the only other non-European regular, is charging full steam ahead. Its public broadcaster SBS, which counts a prominent pro-Israel activist on its board, has issued vague statements about “impartiality” that were immediately met by hundreds of protesters, including former contestant Montaigne. Whoever ends up hosting—Tony Armstrong, Courtney Act, or otherwise—will struggle to paper over the contempt radiating from the audience, no matter how inexplicable the televote turns out to be.

Eurovision now keeps company with the Nobel Peace Prize and the FIFA World Cup as institutions that once pretended to honour something noble but now function as cudgels of Western imperialism. FIFA is now even breaking all the rules to fabricate the inaugural FIFA peace prize for Donald Trump, weaving invisible clothes for demented Empire wannabes. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chair urged Venezuela’s Maduro to step down before awarding the winner of the actual Nobel Peace Prize to the person who is primed to replace him. And Israel is about to do its third post-genocide Eurovision appearance. 

The hypocritical poison of Western leadership is leaking out over Western institutions, Western led rules and its conventions, and now it finally leeches into the bread and circuses that hold the illusion that the West has something better to offer than everyone else. The third entry of Israel into the Eurovision song contest after the tens of thousands of innocent lives it continues to take is something family friendly Eurovision fans cannot reckon with.

But in a year upset by genocide and a continental war with no end in sight, potential flashpoints opening up around the world from Cambodia to Venezuela, rapacious western led multinationals eating the dying world, and techno-feudal overlords hoping for an AI controlled dystopia, some people were still hoping for a few hours of escapism in a singing contest or a football match. Instead, even our precious reprieves now arrive drenched in brutality. And when the distractions fail, all that remains is the machine itself.

Eurovision has fallen victim to the same pattern of moral acquiescence and callous indifference that plagues the Western political mindset. A surge of political withdrawals—driven by moral outrage over Israel’s conduct in Gaza—threatens to erode the contest’s inclusive spirit. The viability of the contest could go on to change the geopolitics of Europe itself.  And just like all the crumbling vestiges of Western prestige, Eurovision looks to be one of the last remaining carrots turned into a stick, transforming a global celebration of music into another flashpoint for a cruel empire.