Eurovision has descended into a total farce, the biggest boycott in the history of Eurovision

over the inclusion of Israel. That is of course because of its genocide against the Palestinian

people. Five countries, Spain, Slovenia, Netherlands, Iceland and Ireland are all boycotting this

year. Israel has qualified for this now completely farcical contest.

But fascinatingly, there has been a detailed investigation in the New York Times,

which overall has whitewashed Israel's crimes throughout the genocide and before.

But exposing just the lengths that Israel went to in order to manipulate the vote in its favor

because of how much it sees Eurovision as a crucial part of so-called soft power

of basically winning cultural sort of cachet and kind of attracting audiences with kind of

pink washing and all that kind of stuff. A lot to talk about with the brilliant Samir Ascanda,

who many of you will know, I've interviewed him several times, not least on this issue. He's a

Palestinian-Irish artist. He's involved in the boycott divestment and sanctions movement,

which is obviously galvanising people across the West and beyond

to take the necessary action to isolate Israel

as it continues its murderous decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people.

Samir's great to chat to as ever.

Hi, Owen. Good to see you.

Where should we start? I think we'll start.

We'll come on to this. This investigation by the New York Times is absolutely fascinating.

But let's just talk about just, I mean, the farce that this is now.

So the fact, how significant is it that five countries are boycotting Eurovision?

A lot of people might go, well, in Britain, it's just some silly camp contest.

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