No pride in genocide:
Boycott Eurovision 2025
Since October 2023, Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Even since the long-awaited, fragile ceasefire, it continues to block aid to Gaza. Despite clear requests from the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, BDS movement and the Slovenian national broadcaster, along with artists from Sweden, Finland, and Iceland to ban them from the Eurovision Song Contest, organisers continue to keep Israel in the competition, declaring it “a non-political event.” This highlights the hypocrisy of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) which banned Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
By allowing Israel to compete in Eurovision, the EBU is complicit not only in whitewashing the genocide Israel is commiting against Palestinians, but also in upholding the apartheid regime’s pinkwashing propaganda— the exploitation of LGBT rights to project a progressive image while Israel commits racist, colonialist atrocities.
Since adopting the “Brand Israel” strategy in 2005, Israel’s cynical instrumentalisation of LGBT+ rights and liberal gay lifestyles has been key to its pinkwashing campaign to conceal its apartheid regime. Eurovision — the ultimate celebration of camp and flamboyance — has attracted the interest, passion and support of the LGBTQIA+ community for decades. Israel understands that the competition presents a unique opportunity for the settler-colonial state to pinkwash its systematic denial of Palestinian’s rights.
For over 76 years, Israel’s apartheid regime has robbed, oppressed, ethnically cleansed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed Indigenous Palestinians, queer and non-queer alike. Now we see Israeli soldiers waving rainbow flags while standing on the ruins of the Palestinian homes, weaponizing homophobia to push Israel’s racist, colonial agenda. But there can be no queer and trans liberation without freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians.
Queer Palestinians continue to exist and resist, as they have done for decades. Now more than ever, it is time for queers around the world to take serious and strategic action in solidarity with our Palestinian siblings.
Last year’s boycott included thousands of artists and hundreds of queer and trans organizations calling for apartheid Israel’s exclusion from Eurovision. In host city Malmö, 30+ artists, venues and organisations withdrew from Eurovision Week, including Malmö Pride. Throughout Europe, many journalists, presenters and others refused to work with Eurovision, and many screening parties were cancelled. With continued, intensifying pressure, we know we can push the EBU to expel Israel from Eurovision so that the competition can finally stand for the values it claims to uphold.
As queer collectives from Palestine and around the world, we refuse to have our identities instrumentalized by the settler-colonial apartheid regime of Israel.
UNTIL ISRAEL IS BANNED FROM THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST, WE CALL FOR:
- Eurovision participants to refuse to perform
- National broadcasters to withdraw from Eurovision
- Local venues to cancel their Eurovision screening parties, and instead host educational events about Israel’s pinkwashing
- Our comrades, lovers and kin to join and share this campaign, join the BDS movement and organise locally
Sign our Call to Action
To sign, click the button to fill in the form or send an email to queercoalitionforpalestine@riseup.net with the following information:
- Your Name (optional)
- Collective or organisation name (required)
- Contact email (required)
- Social Media Profile or Website Link (required)
- Endorsement: (choose up to 3 answers)
A: We endorse the Queer Coalition for Palestine statement “No pride in genocide: Boycott Eurovision 2025”
B: We are a queer organisation
C: We want to receive information from the Queer Coalition for Palestine