Earlier this week, a petition signed by 1005 Swedish artists was published with the demand to exclude Israel from the Eurovision song contest, which is held in Malmö in May.
The reason is the war in Gaza, where the situation is described as a humanitarian disaster and Israel is accused of violating the Genocide Convention. The call was met with harsh criticism from Israel’s ambassador.
What do this year’s mello artists think?
The organizer EBU has said that it is not relevant to exclude Israel from the competition, which is hosted by Sweden.
And right now the Melodifestivalen is underway, where the Swedish representative is to be appointed. SVT therefore asked the question of where the artists in the first part of the competition stand in the debate.
– We have chosen to wait until after the intermission to comment on this, says Samir Badran, who competes together with Viktor Frisk.
He adds that he has a personal opinion that he does not want to “confuse with the contribution and the number”. During the autumn, Badran has frequently criticized Israel for waging war and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for not working hard enough to bring Swedish civilians home from Gaza.
None of the artists wants to answer whether Israel should participate in Eurovision or not. See when they get the question in the clip.