The scene would be almost comic if it were not so revealing: delegates of European broadcasters sitting in Geneva, discussing new rules for a song contest, while outside a salvo of press releases announces boycotts, moral outrage and grand historical analogies. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) adopts a package of reforms to the Eurovision voting system and, at the same time, confirms that Israel will be allowed to participate in the 2026 contest. A clear majority supports the move. In response, four countries – Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands – announce that they are leaving Eurovision. Belgium and Iceland are still hesitating.

On paper, this is a technical decision about how votes are counted and how strongly states and media can mobilize. In practice, everyone understands that the real question on the table was: what to do with Israel, which stubbornly refuses to disappear from the European cultural stage, even when many would prefer to push it politely off-screen.

The first point that has to be stated plainly is this: we are not watching a great drama of “values versus politics,” but a classic exercise in low-cost morality. It is always easier to boycott a song contest than a gas pipeline, an arms contract, or a lucrative technological partnership. It is always cheaper to cancel a broadcast than to reconfigure an export market. The Torah formulates the principle with surgical precision: “לא תטה משפט לא תכיר פנים ולא תקח שחד” (Deuteronomy 16:19). Do not twist justice, do not show partiality, do not take a bribe. The Eurovision boycott is the opposite gesture: a highly visible, emotionally satisfying pseudo-sanction that carefully avoids any real cost for those who declare it.

The EBU, with all its weaknesses and contradictions, has in this case defended one minimal principle: if Eurovision is supposed to be a pan-European cultural arena, it cannot be turned into a drumhead court convened for one state only. The reforms themselves are telling. The maximum number of votes per payment method (online, SMS, phone) is to be reduced from 20 to 10. Viewers are........

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