Another Take: Eurovision 2024 - Divided over Israel
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on May 10, 2024. None of the dates, titles, or other references have changed.
Usually all quirky music and fun, Eurovision has been marked by protests over Israel’s participation during its ongoing war on Gaza. Will it overshadow an event meant to unite?
In this episode:
- Nils Adler (@nilsadler1), Al Jazeera Journalist
Episode credits:
This episode was updated by Tamara Khandaker. The original production team was Ashish Malhotra, Chloe K. Li, Catherine Nouhan, and our host Malika Bilal. Catherine Nouhan fact-checked this episode.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | Hey, I'm Tamara Ken Dacker. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm a producer at The Take, and this is another take, |
| 0:15.0 | where we revisit stories from our archives. |
| 0:19.0 | So Eurovision, the annual international song contest watched by millions across Europe and beyond, is about to pick its winner for 2025. |
| 0:29.6 | And Israel is in the running to win the whole thing. |
| 0:34.6 | 24-year-old singer Yuval Rafael has advanced to the final. Her song, New Day Will Rise, |
| 0:41.5 | is a ballad about grief and resilience. On October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas' attack on Israel, |
| 0:50.4 | Raphael was attending the Nova Music Festival, just five kilometers from the besieged Gaza Strip. |
| 0:57.9 | More than 300 people there were killed. |
| 1:01.5 | Today, as Israel continues its war on Gaza, there has been backlash to it being included |
| 1:07.7 | in Eurovision at all. Some European broadcasters have called for a debate about this, |
| 1:13.6 | and protesters have taken to the streets in Basel, Switzerland, where the contest is happening. |
| 1:19.6 | The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, has consistently defended letting Israel participate. |
| 1:26.6 | We looked at this debate when it came up last year, as huge protests were happening. has consistently defended letting Israel participate. |
| 1:30.0 | We looked at this debate when it came up last year, |
| 1:32.6 | as huge protests were happening in Sweden. |
| 1:35.7 | Today, we're resharing that episode. |
| 1:39.2 | This originally aired May 10th, 2024. |
| 1:52.5 | All dates and references are from that time. Today... |
| 1:53.6 | This Eurovision Song Contest... |
| 1:55.8 | The global song contest that set off mass protests... |
... |
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