Why Eurovision's fallout over Israel may change the competition forever

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Why Eurovision's fallout over Israel may change the competition forever27 minutes ago Share Save Add as preferred on GoogleDaniel RosneyBBCMoments after Austria overtook Israel to win last May's Eurovision Song Contest and in doing so won the right to host this year's event, UK viewers heard commentator Graham Norton say organisers "will be breathing the largest sigh of relief that they're not faced with a Tel Aviv final next year". Anti-Israel protests had built ahead of the contest. At a demonstration of several hundred people in Basel, Switzerland, where the final was held, protesters wore the Palestinian flag and smeared themselves with fake blood to symbolise the killings in Gaza.

During the grand final the Israeli singer Yuval Raphael was targeted when two people attempted to storm the stage, and threw paint which ended up hitting a Eurovision crew member. The atmosphere in the arena as the results came in was easily the most tense I've experienced in my years of reporting on the song contest. There were chants of "Austria, Austria" as the audience awaited the final scores.

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TT/ReutersSome have opposed Israel's inclusion since the start of the war in GazaIf many in the crowd didn't appear to want Israel to win, the public vote showed a different perspective. Yuval Raphael, who received middling points from the competition's judges, outperformed every other participant when it came to the public vote. A number of broadcasters subsequently queried Israel finishing so highly.

They pointed to the fact that official social media accounts linked to Israel's government, including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had been asking people to vote for its representative 20 times, the maximum the contest allowed. Their implication was that the public vote result was less a reflection of widespread public support for Raphael, and more the product of some people voting for Israel as many times as they could. The Israeli government itself has frequently claimed it faces a global smear campaign.

Some broadcasters wanted an audit. There were calls to review the voting system, which had been in place for many years, to ensure that, in the words of Flemish public broadcaster VRT, it could guarantee "a fair reflection of the opinion of viewers and listeners". In response, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event, confirmed the vote had been independently checked and verified, and there was no evidence that voting up to 20 times "disproportionally affects the final result", later clarifying it was "a valid and robust result".

The near victory for Israel, which first entered the contest in 1973 and has won it four times, brought to boiling point what for many years had been a simmering backstage dispute over the influence of geopolitics and conflict on Eurovision voting. The contest's biggest boycottThe Eurovision Song Contest is now facing its biggest boycott in its 70-year history.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.