Eurovision 2025: “Art does not whiten a genocide” – Thomas Portes and Rima Hassan launch a petition to exclude Israel

Launched three weeks ago on the initiative of the deputies Rima Hassan and Thomas Portes, a petition brings together thousands of signatories to demand the exclusion of Israel from Eurovision 2025, which is held this week in Switzerland. The text denounces the “art-waying” of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, and calls on the European Union of Radio-Television (UER) to “do not unroll the red carpet to a criminal state”. “For more than 17 months, the Israeli authorities have been carrying out an assumed extermination policy”, can be read in the introduction. A reference to the words of the Israeli Defense Minister, who said in December that the Gazaouis should “leave or die”.

The petition, which continues to collect support every day, is based on the repeated alerts of the International Court of Justice on a “plausible risk of genocide”, as well as of the 102 public declarations of Israeli officials identified by Amnesty International, calling for the destruction of Gaza.

The human record is overwhelming: more than 52,000 dead, according to local authorities, including thousands of children. 1,000 children killed or injured in a single week after breaking the ceasefire, 400,000 additional displaced, caregivers, humanitarian and targeted journalists. And always, blocked humanitarian aid. “To allow Israel to sing love and peace under the spotlight is to accept that one can bomb a people during the day and dance on stage in the evening”, write the deputies.

The text denounces a two weight, two measures: Russia had been excluded from Eurovision in 2022, Belarus in 2012. Why is Israel still invited, despite crimes widely documented by the UN and international NGOs? “Eurovision is a political forum. Welcoming a colonizing state there is normalizing impunity.”

The deputies conclude by calling the European Union of Radio-Television to be coherent with its own principles : “Refuse the participation of Israel. It is about the memory of the victims and the dignity of the peoples.”