This rant is about Israel and the Eurovision Song contest.
As the Eurovision Song contest approaches so are calls for it's boycott. When Russia invaded Ukraine they banned Russia from participating and then awarded the win to Ukraine. I've always been opposed to Israel's inclusion in a European event because it's not a European country. That's not anti-Semitic because I feel the same way about Australia. Eurovision has always been politically charged with neighbour voting for neighbour and the UK consistently getting nil points.
I boycotted when Israel last staged the competition and it looks like I will have to boycott it again - indeed when you understand the true scale of events how can you do anything but?
I’ll be honest I haven’t been as closely glued to events in Gaza as many.
Yet, I still know Israeli soldiers have deliberately fired on hospitals, food aid queues and that people are on the edge of starvation. That this bombing campaign has disproportionately effected children, many of whom are deeply traumatised. However, the sheer scale of the war crimes committed by Israel has come, not as a surprise exactly, but shocking nonetheless.
Israel now has plans to move displaced Palestinians from Rafah to “humanitarian islands”. No details as to how these islands would work. It seems Israel wants to move people out of the way before they continue to demolish Gaza to make way for new settlements and resource extraction.
Netanyahu has said it is vital that his troops have access to Rafah, because Hamas fighters are hiding in the city and the war would not be complete without a ground incursion there. If this attack goes ahead (and I can’t see the US stopping them), it will create utter devastation for the Palestinian people on the ground who are already starving, homeless and without access to medical care. An attack on Rafah will be another crime against humanity.
A recent raid inside a hospital known as Al Shifa (which has undergone repeated attacks) resulted in 200 “terrorist suspects” being arrested. Israel claims Hamas use hospitals as human shields, something Hamas has denied. Israel has so far failed to produce convincing evidence to support their claim. The Israeli assassination raid on a hospital in the West Bank in January that included disguises and was captured on surveillance cameras could have been a war crime, UN experts have said.
The Prime Minister of Belgium has criticised Israel’s tactics of starvation.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo pictured at a Jordanian Air Force Base from which the Belgian Air Force carries out its airdrops over Gaza , Saturday 16 March 2024 in Amman, Jordan. The Prime Minister is on a 3-day visit to Jordan, Qatar and Egypt. Credit: Belga / Dirk Waem
De Croo has confirmed the continuation of aid to UNWRA, who were incorrectly blamed for taking part in the Hamas attack on Oct 7.
UNWRA have had 170 staffers killed by the IDF and its HQ in Jerusalem has been vandalised and workers threatened.
Even the LA Times is now reporting that it’s become clear that the objective here is to deport the 2.1 million Palestinians out of Gaza and occupy the entire territory. The paper reported how religious Zionists (14% of the population), oppose ceasefire talks and block aid trucks.
Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food and a law professor at the University of Oregon, told The Guardian last month that Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes.
There is no reason to intentionally block the passage of humanitarian aid or intentionally obliterate small-scale fishing vessels, greenhouses, and orchards in Gaza—other than to deny people access to food. Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable—not just individuals or this government or that person.
According to the UN, IDF militants in Gaza have killed more Gazan children in just over five months than “the number of children killed in four years of wars around the world combined.”
More than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed — 70% of whom are women and children — and more than 70,000 people have been injured since October 7.
About one in every 20 children in shelters and health centres in northern Gaza is experiencing “severe wasting,” The New York Times reported. UNICEF reported that one in 3 children (31 percent) under 2 years of age are acutely malnourished in north Gaza, which the agency said is a “staggering escalation” from 15.6 percent in January.
Around 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been internally displaced, around half children. The agency has said these children;
do not have enough access to water, food, fuel, and medicine. Their homes have been destroyed; their families torn apart.
Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of Doctors Without Borders, addressed the UN Security Council last month—after the U.S. rejected another ceasefire resolution to give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche in Gaza—and talked about the impact that the war had on children there;
Children who survive this war will not only bear the visible wounds of traumatic injuries but the invisible ones, too—those of repeated displacement, constant fear, and witnessing family members literally dismembered before their eyes. These psychological injuries have led children as young as five to tell us they would prefer to die.
Much of this information and understanding of what is occurring is coming to us and being shared by the medium of TikTok. Now we see a push for it to be banned citing the Chinese. Summarising the Israeli lobby position was Nikki Haley;
We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.
Polls suggest that Israel is the most despised nation in the world due to its torturing, starving and outright killing of Palestinian civilians. Number two in those polls is the United States, which is paying the price of being Netanyahu’s political, financial and weapons supplier, enabling the deaths and making it complicit in the conflict, much of it being done in secret by Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and covered by a series of lies.
US giving lip service to peace talks whilst 100% supporting Israel's "right to defend itself". Photo
Knowing this can I really justify watching Eurovision? It banned Russia, but by not banning Israel for their actions it is giving them their tacit support and that of all Europe. Whilst the contest held last year in the UK instead of Ukraine played the song "You'll never walk alone", it seems the Palestinians are going to starve alone.
Ireland's national broadcaster RTE received hundreds of emails urging a boycott in a stance against the conflict, but will be competing.
More than 1,000 Swedish musicians - including Dancing On My Own singer Robyn - have accused Eurovision organisers of "double standards" in an open letter.
Britain's entrant, Olly Alexander, has also taken a public stance against Israel, and signed an open letter from LGBTQ+ activist group Voices4London, calling for a ceasefire and for aid to be allowed inside Gaza.
Come on Graham Norton - don't stand with genocide and the deliberate starvation of children - don't go to Eurovision!!
Queer activists spoof YMCA in Graham Norton appeal to boycott Eurovision
