Israel received permission to participate in Eurovision 2026 on Thursday. Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia, however, decided to boycott the competition.
These countries had called for Israel's expulsion from the contest due to the humanitarian consequences of the war in Gaza and suspicions of manipulation of the voting system.
They had proposed that the European Broadcasting Union hold a secret ballot on the issue, but instead, the European Broadcasting Union meeting in Geneva on Thursday adopted new voting rules aimed at making the contest less political. The new rules, aimed at preventing interference in the vote by governments and outside entities, were approved amid accusations that Israel gave dishonest support to its representative, Yuval Raphael, in 2025.
