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 When Israel was selected last year to host the 2019 Eurovision
finals, the high-profile, 42-nation event was identified by the
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign as a target for
its campaign to pressure governments, companies, performers and
academics to isolate Israel.
Even as Israeli workers erect stages and lighting rigs along Tel
Aviv's Mediterranean seafront, some fear that the live
broadcasts of the May 14-18 event may be used by boycott
activists to mount protests in front of millions watching live.
BDS has called on artists and broadcasters to withdraw from the
event, arguing that holding it in Tel Aviv amounts to "artwashing
- whitewashing through arts" Israel's policies towards
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The event's local television hosts, Israel's public broadcaster
Kan, said it does not know what to expect. But Israeli media
reports have raised concerns that activists might try to disrupt
the contest from the audience, or that a performer may mount a
protest on-stage.
The competition - semi-finals followed by a final - will take
place at the Expo Tel Aviv convention center, with a "fan zone"
with big viewing screens at the beachfront Eurovision Village.
Security costs are expected to account for 10 percent of the
expenditure on the event by Kan. A spokeswoman for the
broadcaster said she believed the figure was unusually high.
"There is something big here," Tzahi Gavrieli, head of the
Israeli government's anti-BDS taskforce within the Strategic
Affairs Ministry, told Reuters about the event. "It is a major
brand, and there is definitely an attempt under way by the other
side to take it down."
BDS, which was launched in 2005 and is led by Palestinian
campaigners, describes itself as a global movement to pressure
Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian territories.
Israel claims that some boycott activists call for the
dismantling of Israel itself, and the government has mounted a
vigorous counter-campaign, rebutting BDS attacks and accusing
some supporters of being anti-Semitic or having ties to militant
groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine.
BDS leaders reject the Israeli accusations, saying that their
campaign is a non-violent protest movement opposed to all forms
of discrimination, including anti-Semitism. They deny having any
links to militant groups.
BOTS AND TROLLS
On social media, pro-Palestinian activists have urged supporters
to "join us in disrupting Israel's latest PR stunt" and to
participate in a 'Week of Action Against Eurovision in Tel
Aviv'. This, they said, would involve "loud, visible, mass non
violent actions and protests".
Gavrieli's office issued a report on Thursday saying that BDS
activists had used 232 fake Twitter accounts, including bots and
trolls which, it says, engaged in "coordinated inauthentic
behavior", to drum up opposition to the event.
The BDS dismissed the allegations as "propaganda lies" intended
to cover up "Israel's war crimes against Palestinians and
decades-old system of military occupation".
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"This edition of Eurovision will be remembered ... as a dismal
failure for Israel's propaganda machine," said Alia Malak, of the
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of
Israel, a BDS member group.
A spokesman for Twitter, when asked about the accounts in question,
told Reuters on Thursday that it had "suspended a small group of
accounts for violating [its] regular spam rules, in line with [its]
commitment to improving healthy conversations on the service".
The song contest's umbrella organizer, the European Broadcasting
Union (EBU), is vetting all lyrics and host narrations - a standard
practice for Eurovision.
No participating countries or broadcasters have heeded the BDS calls
to pull out of the event.
Eurovision is promoting the 2019 contest under the slogan "Dare to
Dream". Its website said the motto and artwork of the event
"symbolize inclusion, diversity and unity, resonating with the core
values of the Eurovision Song Contest".
Eurovision has the support of the reigning winner, Netta Barzilai.
It was the Israeli singer's victory last year with the song "Toy"
that brought this year's competition to Israel.
"Being on the same stage, no matter what your religion is, your
ethnicity, your color, from all these countries, all these cultures
combined together, this is a festival of light," she said in
Jerusalem on Monday.
BITTER CAMPAIGN
Palestinians seek a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East
Jerusalem as its capital. More than 400,000 Israeli settlers live in
the West Bank in settlements that Palestinians and many countries
consider to be illegal under the Geneva conventions that bar
settling on land captured in war.
Israel disputes this, citing security needs and biblical, historical
and political connections to the land.
The Eurovision battle is just the latest in a bitter campaign by
both the BDS and the Israeli government to convince an international
audience of the justice of their cause.
The boycott movement claimed victories last year after the New
Zealand pop singer Lorde canceled a planned trip to Israel, and the
Argentina football team, with its star player Lionel Messi, called
off a friendly match against Israel.
But some artists and organizations have defied boycott calls:
Madonna will be a guest performer at Eurovision. And the online
home-renting company Airbnb, which delisted properties in Israeli
settlements in the West Bank in November, last month partially
backtracked amid legal and political pressure.
Israel has sought to deport or deny entry to international activists
over their alleged support for BDS.
An Israeli court last month ordered the deportation of Omar Shakir,
a U.S. citizen who is Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine
director, over claims that he supports the movement. Shakir has
appealed the order to Israel's Supreme Court.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub, Dan Williams and Stephen Farrell; Editing
by Pravin Char)
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