02.10.2025
A pariah state
Pop singers, classical musicians, actors, film makers, sports people have joined the boycott campaign. World public opinion has decisively turned against the genocidal Israeli regime. Anne McShane gives three cheers
When the Israeli war on Gaza began in October 2023, only a minority of well-known artists dared speak out. Those who did knew they were risking their careers. But now the tide is moving in the opposite direction.
It is worth a review of how, just six months ago, things seemed very different. Kneecap, the defiant young Belfast rap band, was in big trouble after having led the way in challenging Israel and its backers. Their most famous act of rebellion was at Coachella, a Californian music festival, in April 2025, when they projected images accusing the US government of enabling, arming and funding the Israeli genocide, declaring ‘Fuck Israel, Free Palestine’.
Retribution was swift, as a hysterical rightwing media condemned them as terrorists and anti-Semites, demanding that they be banned from performing. The intention was that the careers of these Irish upstarts should lie in ruins after such a brazen act. Their US agent immediately dropped them and a number of concerts in Britain and Europe were cancelled. British anti-terrorism police got busy trawling through old footage and managed to hatch up terrorism charges against Liam Ȯg Ȯ hAnnaidh (Mo Chara). The Labour government joined in the witch-hunt, warning Glastonbury organisers to “think very carefully” about inviting the band to perform. Keir Starmer agreed that it “was not appropriate” for them to appear.
The witch-hunt did not succeed. Glastonbury management refused to buckle and Kneecap ended up playing to a huge crowd, entertaining fans by mocking Starmer’s control-freakery and arming of Israel. Naturally too there were pro-Palestine chants. Kneecap’s huge popularity reflects the anti-establishment and pro-Palestine nature of its young audience. This is as true in the US as elsewhere, where the band were due to perform on a sold-out tour this October - which had to be cancelled because of the terrorism charges against Mo Chara. Now those charges have disappeared - one was dropped in July during Glastonbury and the other just recently kicked out of Woolwich Crown Court for being “unlawful” because it was brought out of time.
Now opposition to Israel among musicians is increasingly popular. Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Annie Lennox and Roger Waters openly call for boycott. The ‘No Music for Genocide’ petition has 400 signatories include Carole King, Primal Scream, Nadine Shah, Bjork and the group Massive Attack, which, along with hundreds of less well known artists, have pulled their music from Spotify because it streams in Israel.
There have been ructions even in the cerebral and largely pro-Israel world of classical music. Over 700 classical musicians have signed a statement headed ‘Classical Music for Palestine’, which calls for an immediate ceasefire. More controversially, the organisers of the Flanders Festival in Ghent have cancelled a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, as its Israeli conductor, Lahav Shani, had not sufficiently distanced himself from Israel’s actions and remains the chief director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Their action has been met with accusations of anti-Semitism from the German government. Culture minister Wolfram Weimer declared: “We can never let the programme of European stages be dictated by anti-Semites.”
Another Israeli conductor, Ilan Volkov, made a brave and passionate speech against the genocide just before his performance at the BCC Proms in September. He then participated in a protest in Tel Aviv’s Bima Square, organised by Dalit Ziv, flautist and composer, where she assembled a group of musicians to simulate the sounds of drones over Gaza. Then on September 19 Volkov was arrested on the Israeli border, where he was protesting in support of the Samud flotilla.
Contestants
The glitzy pop spectacle of the Eurovision song contest is also shifting towards excluding Israel. In early 2024 the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural boycott of Israel (PACBI), and the Palestinian-led global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement called on all countries to refuse to take part in the contest if Israel was allowed to participate. Solidarity movements in Iceland, Sweden, Ireland, Britain, Spain and other European countries organised petitions, demonstrations and social media campaigns.
But broadcasters refused to withdraw, claiming that the parent body of Eurovision, the European Broadcasting Union, would impose heavy fines if they did. The EBU executive has consistently defended Israel, and has, in the words of one petition, been “providing cultural cover and endorsement for the catastrophic violence that Israel has unleashed on Palestinians”.
This year the Eurovision boycott campaign included an open letter from more than 70 former Eurovision contestants, including the 2024 winner, demanding that Israel and its broadcaster, Kan, are excluded. This time the pressure and the unavoidable truth of the genocide sent a number of broadcasters off to argue unsuccessfully with the EBU that it should exclude Israel. The Eurovision song contest went ahead with Israel included.
Despite BBC director-general Tim Davie telling us that the song contest has “never been about politics”, it absolutely is. And politics has meant the exclusion of other states. Belarus was suspended from participating in 2021 because of its ‘human rights record’ and Russia in 2022 immediately after its invasion of Ukraine. The Israeli state knows how important Eurovision is as a political showcase. Its entry for 2024, initially titled ‘October rain’, was a piece of sickening political propaganda - too much even for the EBU, which demanded changes or elimination. Israeli president Isaac Herzog intervened to persuade national broadcaster Kan to dial the lyrics down. Kan agreed, applauding Herzog for acting to ensure that Israel could continue to “raise its voice” in the Eurovision when “those who hate us are seeking to repress and boycott the state of Israel”. The replacement, Hurricane, substituted ‘storm’ for ‘October’ and got through to the competition.
Both the 2024 and 2025 contests were marked by protests, including a demonstration of 10,000 outside the auditorium in Malmo in 2024. Contestants inside raised Palestinian flags in spite of a ban on doing so, and a large section of the audience booed and heckled Israeli entries. Ireland’s 2024 entrant, non-binary performer Bambie Thug, wore a costume with a message in ancient Irish Ogham calling for freedom for Palestine. Farcically, the EBU bureaucracy detected and translated it, then insisted that it be removed. The performer complained afterwards about how the event was massively censored and biased. Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere was toxic.
In a volte-face, on September 11, Ireland’s state broadcaster, the RTÉ, announced that it would boycott the 2026 Eurovision unless Israel is excluded, stating that to do otherwise would be “unconscionable, given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza”. Since then Slovenia, the Netherlands, Iceland and Spain have also threatened boycott. What was unthinkable for broadcasters last year has now become a moral duty. A boycott by Spain is significant, as it is one of the ‘Big Five’ - the countries which provide the most funding for the contest and automatically qualify to take part.
The EBU has now announced that a vote will be taken at an extraordinary online general assembly in November to decide on Israel’s participation in Eurovision 2026. This follows a meeting of its executive, where it was unable to reach a decision. Its president, Delphine Ernotte-Cunci, wrote that the EBU contained an “unprecedented diversity of views” on Israel and a final decision required “a broader democratic basis”.
Hollywood too
The cultural boycott has had a big impact in Hollywood, with more than 5,000 actors, directors and film workers signing an open letter pledging their refusal to work with Israeli film institutions. They include actors Oliva Coleman, Brian Cox, Joaquin Pheonix, Tilda Swinton and Susan Sarandon. Now 1,200 others, including the vile Sharon Osborne and the equally vile Debra Messing, have issued their own pro-Israel letter, headed ‘Creative Community for Peace’, which falsely accuses their opponents of targeting individual actors and directors.
In sport there are any number of boycott controversies, most famously the demand made of Fifa by a large number of national teams to ban Israel from the World Cup. However, Fifa president Gianni Infantino has a close friendship with Donald Trump, who has made it clear that he will do everything possible to prevent that happening. The latest news is that Fifa has postponed a decision, pending the outcome of Trump’s latest Gaza plan. More success has taken place with the European body, UEFA, which is expected to exclude Israel from its fixtures next year, including the Nations League and the Europa League.
The above survey illustrates how the BDS movement has gained an unprecedented momentum and strength. It is a strength that has been hard fought for. Unlike Russia, which was the target of official sanctions from 2022, Israel has been supported despite two years of proven genocide, while the Palestinian solidarity movement has been constantly attacked, harried and demonised by the establishment. Now, however, global public opinion has swung decisively against Israel and what it is doing in Gaza and on the West Bank.