Investigation says Israeli government ran a coordinated Eurovision influence campaign

An investigation has found that Israel’s government mounted what it called a “well-organised campaign” to use Eurovision as a form of soft power, adding fresh heat to a contest already under intense political scrutiny.

The report, published by New York Times, says the state backed influence efforts around the Eurovision Song Contest in past years and suggests those tactics may have raised questions about whether the voting environment was distorted.

According to the New York Times, the Israeli government treated the competition as a way to “burnish the country’s flagging reputation and rally international support,” with promotional activity stretching back to 2018. The paper also says at least $1 million, or £730,000, was spent on Eurovision marketing, including money from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hasbara office, which handles the country’s public image. In 2024 alone, it reports, $800,000, or £587,110, was set aside for “vote promotion.”

That money matters because Eurovision rules are supposed to keep governments out of the voting process. Martin Green, the contest’s director, has already said that while Israel’s efforts went too far, they did not account for the country finishing second in 2024 with Eden Golan or again in 2025 with Yuval Raphael. The New York Times similarly says there is no evidence of bots or other covert methods being used to warp the final result, even if Israel’s entries won the public vote in countries where the state is “deeply unpopular”.

Still, the scale of the push has kept the conversation alive. Last year, Netanyahu posted an image urging people to vote 20 times, the maximum allowed at the time, for Raphael, and several pro-Israel groups across Europe shared the same image. Doron Medalie, a former Israeli Eurovision songwriter, defended the approach, telling the outlet: “Everybody is jealous and triggered because Israel is achieving great results”.

Pressure around the voting system only grew after the 2025 contest. Some broadcasters asked to see the voting data, others called for an external investigation, and although the competition’s director promised the governing body would review the vote, the broadcasters were never given a “full vote analysis”.

Concerns over Israel’s participation had already surfaced last July, when Spain pushed for a debate at a broadcaster meeting in London and called for changes to the voting system. Around the same time, Czech broadcasting veteran Petr Dvorak was brought in to interview EBU members about the issue. He later said that while opinions differed, some “felt that Israel as a state is sometimes using this event as some sort of promotional tool”.

Green later said Israel’s actions had not affected the 2025 result, though he did not publish a close breakdown of the numbers. He also advised broadcasters on using social media to drive votes, which the outlet interpreted as an acknowledgment that online campaigns can shape public participation, even if Israel’s campaign did not alter the outcome.

Then came a secret ballot and a rule change. Broadcasters agreed that, for the 2026 competition, the maximum number of votes per viewer would drop from 20 to 10. But the New York Times reports that the team behind Israel’s 2026 entrant, Noam Bettan, has already circulated social media posts encouraging people to vote for him 10 times.

“Employing a direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules, nor the spirit of the competition,” Mr. Green said in a statement, adding that campaigns like that cannot determine the final result.

Israel is due to compete in the 2026 edition, which begins tomorrow, Tuesday May 12, and runs through the week. In December, Green addressed the controversy in an open letter to fans, acknowledging that “many of you will be feeling strong emotions at this time,” especially around “events in the Middle East and how those realities connect to the Eurovision Song Contest”.

He also pushed back against demands that Eurovision take a hard geopolitical stance, saying, “The only way the Eurovision Song Contest can continue to bring people together is by ensuring we are guided by our rules first and foremost”.

Outside the official lines, the pressure has only intensified. No Music For Genocide issued an open letter calling for fans to boycott this year’s Eurovision unless Israel is removed from the contest, and it has now been signed by more than 1,100 cultural workers and artists.

The letter first appeared on April 21 and gathered names including Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Kneecap, Hot Chip, Of Monsters and Men, IDLES, Primal Scream, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Mogwai, Black Country New Road, Erika de Casier, Nadine Shah, Dry Cleaning, Ólafur Arnalds, David Holmes, Nemahsis, Macklemore, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Vacations, Smerz, a number of former Eurovision finalists, and more.