Meri Virta voted for Israel in Eurovision – it was a protest
Israel’s overwhelming audience response to the Eurovision Song Contest is puzzling, as the song has not been popular on streaming services.
Virta says that in addition to melodic or lyrical reasons, political reasons also weighed in the balance.
– I am annoyed by the Palestinian protests, so I wanted to vote against them. I also don’t like the talk of Israel being excluded from the Games. That is a crowd favourite.
Virta had originally planned to vote for Israel as a protest. After hearing the song, he found he liked it, and may have chosen it for musical reasons as well.
Israel scored the most audience points in the finals, 297.
Wisdom fans say political reasons have influenced the pros and cons
The Eurovision Song Contest was held at the same time as the humanitarian crisis gets worse in Gaza’s forced transplantation of Gaza in third countries.
Raphael performed the song *New Day Will Rise *, which received the second most audience votes in Finland. Only Vöyrian Kaj, who represented Swedish, received more votes from the Finnish audience.
Yle asked the visa fans why they voted Israel. There were less than 300 answers and emphasized political reasons. Many said they were supporting Israel in their war in Gaza.
A few respondents also participated in the survey, who considered Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest and questionable about voting results.
Pitkälahti thinks that the Somemo ad campaign published by the Israeli administration has had a significant impact on the vote.
Pitkälahti himself collided with a few times under the visa, where Yuval Raphael urges Finnish to vote in Finnish. Raphael recalls in the video that each can vote 20 times.
In Finland, one vote cost € 1.50.
Pitkälahti himself supported Erika Vikman, but did not completely vote in the finals.
Pitkälahti also thinks that Eurovision has become a completely political performance where singing has been left out.
He hopes that Israel will be excluded from the competition in the same way as Russia when the country began the offensive war in Ukraine. He believes that Finland and other participating countries can truly influence Israel’s participation.
– Finland should threaten to freeze out of visas if Israel participates, says Hilda Pitkälahti.
The future of the Eurovision Song Contest is under threat
Yle has announced that it intends to intervene in the voting practices of the Eurovision Song Contest. At least for the time being, the company is not going to withdraw from the competition.
The voting method and the participants will decide on the European Broadcasting Union or EBU.
– If the country had won, many countries would have missed the upcoming races, Ville Vedinpää writes in his analysis.