Eurovision Jurors are Supposed to Leave Their Politics at the Door

The national jurors of the Eurovision Song Contest are supposed to leave their politics at the door and vote only on the basis of individual performances. Eden Golan was the singer representing Israel. She came in fifth, based on calculations of votes both from the national jurors, and from the broader public that also voted. It now turns out that one of the jurors, Daniel Owen from Norway, refused to cast his vote for Eden Golan purely on the basis of politics. He didn’t have to listen to her song. It was enough that she was an Israeli, a citizen of the apartheid, settler-colonial, genocidal state of Israel. More on this revelation, that has so perturbed those running the Eurovision Contest, can be found here: “Eurovision Organizers ‘Disappointed’ Jury Member Improperly Withheld Points From Israel Due to Gaza War,” by Shiryn Ghermezian, Algemeiner, May 13, 2024:

A member of the Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest jury admits that he refused to give Eden Golan and Israel any points at all due to the war in Gaza

24-y-old Daniel Owen ends his message with “Free Palestine”

How many such cases were there among jury members yesterday?

🇳🇴🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/0tQ1d9RsZB

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 12, 2024

Organzers of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest told The Algemeiner on Monday they were saddened to discover that one of the competition’s jury members knowingly violated rules of the contest by refusing to allocate points to Israeli singer Eden Golan because of his personal bias against Israel and its ongoing war targeting Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

“We have been made aware by our Norwegian Member NRK about the comments made by one of the jurors regarding their voting in the Eurovision Song Contest,” the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said in a statement. “We are disappointed if the juror in question disregarded the instructions that they confirm they had received as part of the Voting Rules of the Contest. The voting procedure is monitored in all countries and the EBU received a notarized result from NRK signed by each jury member confirming that they did vote according to the rules.”…

Each participating member of the EBU has a national jury that votes in the Eurovision Song Contest. Jury members vote individually and are required to distribute points to Eurovision contestants based solely on their songs and performances in the competition. The final winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is chosen by combining jury votes and public votes, also called the audience’s televotes.

The Norwegian broadcaster NRK is a member of the EBU and, following the Eurovision 2024 Grand Final on Saturday, Owen said he was shocked and upset that the Norwegian jury awarded eight points in total to Israel. He admitted that he himself refused to give a single point to Golan, who ultimately finished in fifth place in the competition that took place this year in Malmo, Sweden.

“I was not involved in the allocation of points to Israel,” he said. “Although I was not involved in the awarding of points to Israel, I would like to apologize that this was shown from the Norwegian jury.”

Owen’s actions were in violation of Eurovision rules, which he admitted in a video posted on social media. He said that before the Eurovision was broadcast, the jury was shown a video detailing rules of the competition, one of which states that “you must not favor or discriminate against any participant based on nationality, gender, suitability, political views, or any other reason other than the song and performance. Do not let political views affect how you evaluate a song and/or an artist.”…

There were 20,000 anti-Israel pro-Hamas protesters at Malmö, chanting their slogans in the streets right outside Eden Golan’s hotel. She received death threats online, and had to be put under 24/7 police guard. In addition, she was told not to leave her room except to appear onstage for her performance, and after that, to return at once to her hotel room.

Gunilla Süssmann, who was also on the Norwegian jury alongside Owen, said about the jury allocating eight points to Israel: “The fact that the jury did not choose to boycott artists is not the same as us supporting war. This was a purely professional assessment where we had to assess the best song based on our musical expertise. That is what we have done.”…

That is what you, Gunilla Sussmann, may have done, offering a “purely professional assessment” of the songs and the performers, but by his own admission, that is not what Daniel Owen did. He decided to withhold his vote from Eden Golan for one reason only: she is Israeli, and he wanted to make a public display of his anger with the Jewish state by denying her his vote.

After arriving back home to Israel on Sunday, Golan told reporters she was not shocked when she heard the low scores given to Israel by the national juries. “I think it was understood [that it would turn out that way],” she said….

In other words, Golan had resigned herself to the fact that the fix was in: the national juries would under no circumstances allow the Israeli performer to win. Daniel Owen was open about his reasons for not voting for Eden Golan, but there were many others on the national juries who did likewise, but did not speak openly about it.

Voters in 14 different countries out of the 37 eligible to vote, as well as those in all non-participating Eurovision nations, which are grouped together, allocated the most possible points — 12 — to Israel. The Jewish state got 12 votes from countries including Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It also got 10 points, the second-highest allocation possible, from Albania, Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, Moldova, Slovenia, and Ireland.

Apparently, those who voted in all those countries— the “public votes” as opposed to the “jurors’ vote,” — were not about to take out on Eden Golan any misgivings they may have had about Israel’s war in Gaza. In fact, they were wildly enthusiastic about her performance. Had the winner been picked solely by popular vote, without any input from the national juries, Eden Golan would have won. It might even be the case, as some commentators on both the French and Italian television news have suggested, that many members of the public were indeed voting for Golan for political reasons, as a most public sign of solidarity and support for Israel’s war in Gaza. If that is true – and it is hardly implausible – it would be wonderful.