Israel’s revised ESC song approved

The organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have approved Israel’s reworked song, Israel’s Kan TV reported. The first version was rejected because it was perceived as too political.

Israel will take part in the competition, the public broadcaster announced on Thursday, citing the organizers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in Geneva. The channel is one of the broadcasters participating in the ESC. Israeli participant Eden Golan will perform the rewritten song, now called ‘Hurricane’, in Sweden in May.

The singer will sing the song for the first time on Israeli television on Sunday evening, as Kan previously announced. The song has the same melody as its predecessor “October Rain”, which was too political for the organizers. According to media reports, the song refers to the October 7 massacre by the Islamist Hamas in Israel.

According to a statement, by changing the content the channel also complied with a request from Israeli President Izchak Herzog, who therefore contacted the channel’s board of directors. Israel must raise its voice at a time when those who hated the country were trying to exclude and boycott it, Herzog said, according to a statement from the broadcaster, in favor of his country’s participation in the ESC.

The Kan broadcaster initially announced that it did not want to edit the text, but subsequently reversed its decision. Otherwise this would have cost Israel its participation in the ESC.

Swedish artists, among others, had called for Israel to be excluded from the ESC because of the Gaza war. The organizers refused. (sda/dpa/lyn)