As 'Eurovision Song Contest 2019' banners go up across Tel Aviv, behin...
TEL AVIV - As ‘Eurovision Song Contest 2019’ banners go up across Tel Aviv, behind the glitz of the songfest is the latest manifestation of a bitter row between Israel and an international pro-Palestinian boycott movement.
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. “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.”
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 song contest’s umbrella organizer, the European Broadcasting Union , is vetting all lyrics and host narrations - a standard practice for Eurovision.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”.
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