If anyone thought that Israel would make it easy for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to decide on its participation in Eurovision, they were very wrong. Despite the Israeli public television, KAN, already warning that Israel would not abandon the Eurovision Song Contest, Israel has taken it a step further and announced that it will launch the competition to choose who will represent Israel in Vienna in May, as long as in November the voting of the countries that make up the EBU does not vote in favor of its expulsion.
Israel's public broadcasting has announced that it will once again select its representative for Eurovision through the talent show The Next Star of Eurovision, despite the country's participation in the contest still being uncertain.
The program, called Rising Star in Hebrew, will be broadcast on Keshet 12, a channel with which the collaboration already spans nine seasons.
KAN stated in its message that both the two semifinals and the final will be broadcast on KAN 11, KAN Box, its app, and the public corporation's radio stations. The country is moving forward with its plans despite the various calls for its expulsion.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the organizer of Eurovision, announced last Thursday that it has called an extraordinary assembly in November for the public television stations that make it up to vote on whether Israel participates in the 2026 edition, due to the opposition of several members because of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Public television stations from countries like Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, or the Netherlands have publicly expressed their intention not to participate next year if Israel does.
Spain is the only country so far to make such a decision among the members of the so-called Big Five, which includes the five members that make the largest contributions to the EBU. The other four are Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Israel came in second place in this year's edition, represented by Yuval Raphael, and ranked fifth in 2024. On both occasions, it was the country most voted for by the public.
In the 2024 edition, the first since the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza following Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023, the country's representative, Eden Golan, was booed in each of her performances due to the then more than 30,000 Palestinians killed, a number that currently stands at around 66,000.
Whether Israel will participate in 2026 or not will be the only topic on the agenda for the November assembly, which was initially scheduled for December, the month when television stations must confirm their participation.