This year's event had nearly everything you could ask for—extraordinary performances, impressive spectacles, and a tight race that came down to the final televote announcement. I certainly did not expect Israel to nearly win the whole thing. The bookmakers all predicted a Swedish runaway -- by the night of the final, it was Sweden for the win with nearly even odds against the other 25 countries in the field, with Austria as a solid second. Everyone else had only a distant chance of winning.
In reality, it was a far more wide open race. Thirteen countries received twelve points from at least one jury. Some of those (UK, Germany, Albania, Armenia) went to countries that were nowhere close to the top of the table in the either the jury or televote. Top marks were spread all over the voting table, with no country gaining any serious momentum. Sweden earned only a single twelve points (from Iceland!) and were left off nearly half of the jury ballots. Austria was the clear leader after the jury vote, albeit not in dominant fashion as we've seen in past years, where the competition was essentially wrapped up by the halfway point of the jury vote reveal. Austria was left off five ballots completely.
A lot has been written about Israel "rigging" the competition and dominating the televote by nefarious means, ranging from complaints about Israeli sponsorship of the ESC (Moroccanoil) to accusations of vote stumping. Actually, vote stumping is putting it mildly, many commenters have dipped their toes in outright Jew baiting and Jew hatred. If such theories are to be believed, the long tentacles of Israel have breached literally dozens of unsuspecting European countries in a coordinated voting campaign, enabling millions to register illegal votes thanks to their multiple credit cards and sneaky manipulation of their VPN's, all enabled (presumably) by well-oiled financial backing provided by you-know-who. Most of the accusers aren't dumb enough to outright say all this, but you know that many of them mean it.
It's easier for many people to believe in these wild fantasies than the alternative, grounded in reason, and not batshit crazy reality. Maybe people ... wait, let me gather my thoughts ... maybe people liked the song. Maybe they were uplifted by its message of hope. Maybe they knew something about Yuval Raphael's backstory and her road to the Eurovision stage, and were inspired to vote for her in the same way that millions were inspired to vote for Ukraine in 2022 or for Conchita Wurst in 2014 or for plenty of other sentimental competitors over the years.
Perish the thought that *some* online campaigning might have taken place in the interest of winning a prestigious singing competition. Now that I think of it, in the recent Canadian and American elections (and doubtless in plenty of others, I'm sure), certain politicians many have (gasp) campaigned for voter attention! Apparently, the Israel haters were under the impression that democracy was about the best candidate winning in a completely objective fashion. And they also just discovered that as a voter, they have no way to voice their displeasure about the candidates that they don't like, or to simply exclude and disqualify candidates purely through the strength of their convictions. Incredible -- incredible, I say! -- that certain elements of our society want the goalposts of democracy to be shifted when pesky Jews or Israelis are involved.
In all seriousness, it's simple math. Eurovision isn't a run-off contest. If Austria and Israel had faced a one-on-one televote, like they would in all the reality show talent contests, then I'm fairly certain that Austria would have won. But those aren't the rules of the game, there are 26 finalists and if the televotes were distributed equally, each country would get about four percent. If any one finalist gets a small boost in votes for any reason, perhaps to six or seven percent, it could be enough to pick up a lot of points. You don't need anything close to a majority to win the televote, you just need more votes than your competition. Israel might have gotten six percent of the vote , with the other 94 percent spread amongst the other twenty five finalists and spread so thin that it allowed Israel to come out on top. That process, repeated in dozens of countries, led to Israel's dominant win in the televote.
This process isn't unfair at all, it's how virtually every ESC is decided. Israel has its fans, which obviously helps but lots of countries have their fans. The Baltic countries support each other nearly every year, as do the DACH countries, and so on. What is crystal clear is that the obnoxious "strategy" of negatively targeting Israel has failed spectacularly, all it has done is bring more sympathetic eyes to Israel's performances.
The Eurovision finals are a blur of frenzied activity and even its biggest fans are challenged to keep up. Each year, immediately after watching the finals broadcast, I would be hard pressed to recall anything about half of the performances from memory. Unless you're taking notes or actively posting on social media, there's too much going on. Anything that makes a performance stand out and stick in people's memories is important for registering votes. How outrageous and bonkers can you be? That's been the challenge for many going on at least fifteen years. JJ from Austria has an unforgettable, wholly unique voice, that's why he won (and deservedly so). Finland has a knack for staging ESC performances that sound and look different from everyone else's (who could forget Lordi and Kaarija). As for Israel, nobody took a bathroom break during their performances these past couple of years. Controversy sells. The Spanish broadcaster posted a political message immediately before Yuval Raphael took the stage. It will likely cost them a hefty fine. It didn't matter -- the Spanish televote awarded twelve points to Israel. Sweden has proven itself to be a hellhole for Jews and was the centre of controversy and protest when they hosted the ESC last year. The Swedish televote awarded twelve points to Israel. Tens of thousands protest against Israel nearly every week in London. The UK televote awarded twelve points to Israel. Perhaps 90 percent of the voters in each of these hate Israel or hated the song or what have you. It really doesn't matter, the math still checks out.
And now for a few thoughts about the music:
Austria. As mentioned above, JJ is a unique talent and is a deserving winner. Maybe he's a bit of a ringer (a performer in the Vienna State Opera), but who cares? That type of singing doesn't always translate to a pop music viewership, but he pulled it off.
UK: Their song generated a lot of hate, but I thought it was a catchy bit of faux-Spice Girls bubblegum pop.
Estonia: Hard not to love this.
Iceland: Campaigned to get Israel banned, yet blatantly plagiarized an Eyal Golan song, finished second to last in the final. Karma sucks!
Sweden: A whole load of nothing, I have no earthly idea why they were so highly favoured by the bookmakers. Sweden usually delivers the goods, so maybe it was a built-in bias?
Albania: I LOVE when Eurovision goes EBM/gothwave.
