In Brussels, Palestinian songwriter Bashar Murad stood before hundreds in an ornate concert hall and sang Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” in English and Arabic, drawing an eruption from the audience as the final notes faded. The performance Tuesday evening was part of a wider protest movement against this week’s Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, where Israel’s participation has triggered anger over its devastating military campaign in Gaza and elsewhere.
What People Did Instead
Murad’s set was not a side note. It was part of the “United for Palestine” event in Brussels, one of several alternative concerts taking place across Europe this week. European musicians performed alongside Murad and other Palestinian artists, building a parallel stage outside the official apparatus of Eurovision, the Geneva-based European Broadcasting Union’s annual pop machine. Murad said, “It’s always amazing to be in the same room with people who believe in the same things as you and people who believe that we can’t just let the show go on.”
That line lands harder than the contest’s polished slogan. Eurovision’s motto is “United by Music,” yet the event is now split by boycotts, protests, and the question of whether a broadcast spectacle can keep laundering legitimacy while war rages on. Five nations, including Spain and Ireland, are boycotting the contest as performers from 35 countries compete in Europe’s annual pop music competition, which marks its 70th anniversary this year. Ten countries including Israel and favorite Finland won places Tuesday in Saturday’s final.
Murad’s mother and father, a founding member of the influential Palestinian music group Sabreen, unsuccessfully petitioned the European Broadcasting Union in 2007 to admit Palestine to the contest. That request was turned away by the institution that controls the stage, the rules, and the gatekeeping. Since joining in 1973, Israel has won four times, giving the country visibility at a high-profile event that celebrates diversity.
Who Controls the Stage
The contest’s organizers have tried to keep the show moving while the politics outside the arena get louder. Performers are judged by juries in participating nations and viewers around the world, and this year the broadcasting union tightened voting rules in response to allegations that Israel’s government broke the contest’s rules to support its contestant. But the broadcasting union declined to kick Israel out, and that refusal helped trigger the boycott by Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog welcomed the union’s decision, saying at the time that “Israel deserves to be represented on every stage around the world.” That is the language of access and prestige, delivered from the top while the people protesting the war are left to build their own stages in response.
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said she believes Eurovision should throw Israel out of the competition like it did Russia in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She said, “Songs and sequins must not be allowed to drown out or distract from Israel’s atrocities or Palestinian suffering.”
Israel’s place in the contest has become contentious as outrage has grown over the carnage in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, with massive popular protests and European Union politicians mulling new sanctions. The official response remains trapped in the familiar loop of institutions debating sanctions, rules, and representation while the spectacle continues.
The Alternative Circuit
Katrien De Ruysscher, founder of the activist group SOS Gaza, which organized the Brussels event along with rights group 11.11.11, said, “We have to create an alternative because the participation of Israel is problematic.” Similar events are taking place in Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Italy and Spain, organizers said. Spanish public television, which in past years broadcast the Eurovision contest, plans to air alternative broadcasting on Saturday evening. It said the program titled “La Casa de la Música” will be a tribute to the musical legacy of the broadcaster, marking its 70th anniversary. It will feature performances by 20 veteran and newcomer musicians including the winners of a Spanish contest, the Benidorm Fest, who would normally have gone to Eurovision.
None of the alternative events will boast an audience like the Eurovision contest, which drew 166 million viewers in 2025 and continues to draw enthusiastic fans this year. That scale is part of the problem and part of the pressure: a giant cultural machine with global reach, now forced to share attention with people refusing to let the official show define the whole story.
Murad said he hoped the alternative events can spark some reflection of the pop cultural juggernaut’s original mission to unite people through song. He said, “The purpose of these alternative programs that are happening is to remind Eurovision what it’s actually about and to try to hopefully bring it back, to correct its course and make it actually live up to the things that it claims to be about,” and, “A lot of people in the world feel that the competition has lost its meaning.” Associated Press writer Teresa Medrano contributed from Madrid, Spain.