How Israel gamed Eurovision in state-led bid to mask its global pariah status

Israel artificially boosted its Eurovision candidate through a state-backed influence campaign, fuelling speculation that its second-place finish in the popular vote was distorted by government intervention, a New York Times investigation has revealed. The campaign, which included public money, diplomatic pressure, multilingual online adverts and direct calls for viewers to vote repeatedly, has exposed how Israel turned the world’s most-watched music competition into a soft power weapon while its global image collapsed over the genocide in Gaza. A Times investigation, based on internal Eurovision documents, undisclosed voting data and interviews with more than 50 people, found that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government spent at least $1 million on Eurovision-related marketing. Some of the funding came from Netanyahu’s hasbara office, widely […]