The 70th Eurovision Song Contest arrives in Vienna this weekend under a cloud of controversy that has only thickened in its final days. The European Broadcasting Union issued a formal warning to the Israeli delegation after a promotional video in which singer Noam Bettan urged viewers to cast the maximum ten votes for his entry was circulated across social media in twelve languages. The EBU, which tightened its rules against external vote manipulation last year following similar complaints about Israeli campaigns, swiftly ordered the material removed, calling the solicitation “not acceptable”. The incident is the latest flashpoint in a deepening rift over Israel’s participation as its military offensive in Gaza, launched after the Hamas attacks of October 2023, continues to polarise the continent.

Five regular competitors — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain — are sitting out this year’s contest entirely, a boycott unparalleled in recent Eurovision history. Viewed from Madrid and Dublin, the decision reflects a conviction that the event’s stated ethos of unity through music cannot coexist with the stage being offered to a state whose conduct in Gaza has drawn widespread international condemnation. In Reykjavik and Ljubljana, cultural ministries have justified the absence by pointing to the EBU’s refusal to exclude Israel, arguing that the organisation has allowed political symbolism to override its own values. The absent delegations leave a gap in the usual festive grid, but their protest has not diminished the determination in Vienna to press ahead with the show.

From Tel Aviv, the stance appears differently: officials there have long maintained that Israeli artists should not be penalised for government policy, and that the contest should remain a cultural, not political, arena. The Israeli broadcaster has denied any systematic attempt to rig the televote, framing the ad campaign as an overzealous marketing initiative by the artist’s team. Yet the EBU’s rebuke, confirmed by executive director Martin Green to Norwegian media, underscores a growing impatience with repeated breaches of competition rules. In Vienna, the atmosphere among the 35 remaining delegations is cautious. One notable participant is Italy’s Sal da Vinci, the Sanremo winner whose ballad Per Sempre sì has amassed thirty-six million streams — making him the most listened-to artist in this year’s lineup. He has sought to steer attention toward music’s capacity to transcend pain, a sentiment the EBU will hope prevails.

What happens after the final gala in the Stadthalle will test Eurovision’s long-held conceit that it can absorb geopolitical storms without breaking. The five-nation boycott and the ad scandal have already cost the contest some of its buoyancy, and organisers are braced for street protests in Vienna. Analysts in London note that the episode echoes previous controversies — over Russia’s exclusion after 2022, or Belarus before that — but with a crucial difference: this time, the dissenting voices are not from autocratic governments but from within the liberal democratic consensus that has historically been the contest’s backbone. Should the boycotts persist or widen next year, the EBU may be forced to reconsider its membership criteria or face a slow hollowing-out of the event’s credibility. For now, the show goes on, but the turquoise carpet has never felt less neutral.