Austria Eurovision win is overshadowed by politics

Opera-pop song pushes Israel into second place in a show struggling with its post-war ideals, writes Mark Beaumont

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"We're off to the races!" declares Graham Norton as the camp action gets underway at Basel's St Jakob arena in Switzerland.

And thus it falls once more to Eurovision to sashay into the bloody-toothed geopolitical scrum, plonk down a boombox playing the Vengaboys and try to get a savage world to sing about saunas for four hours.

The ‘Vision, with its post-war ideals of unity through cheesepop, wasn’t made for violent division within its ranks, nor at all ready for it. In recent, turbulent years it has become as much an international PR exercise as song contest, pinioned by its supposed non-political ethos as its participants make it ever more overtly political. This year, as in 2024, the main source of controversy is Israel’s involvement in the event through contestant Yuval Raphael.

You might call it war-washing. You might argue that a global TV audience of 180 million should sense the level of solidarity abroad for the suffering Palestinian civilians, even through the TV feed’s “audio-sweetened” crowd noise. But there’s a sour note to what Norton calls “a mixed response” of cheers and jeers for Raphael herself on the night – a survivor of the 7 October terrorist attack on the Nova music festival who was selected by public vote as something of a national heroine.

The song given to her by committee, “New Day Will Rise”, might even reflect the hopes of the general Israeli public for compassion, peace and renewal. “Everyone cries, don’t cry alone,” Raphael sings amid much Broadway bombast and slashes of Middle Eastern strings. “Life will go on… darkness will fade, all the pain will go.” That said, to sing it on an opulent, crystaldrenched staircase while our newsfeeds are full of emaciated Palestinian children in bombed-out homes still feels like a provocative move. “New day will rise,” great. But for everyone?