Responding to the decision, the public broadcasters of Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia immediately announced that they would follow through on their threats to quit the competition in protest.

The vote and decision capped a dramatic meeting of the EBU general assembly in Geneva, where members argued for and against Israel’s participation and the ramifications of either decision.

Ultimately, the EBU said that “a large majority of members” was satisfied with a package of reforms to the Eurovision unveiled last month, and “agreed that there was no need for a further vote” on whether Israel could participate.

“This vote means that all EBU members who wish to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 and agree to comply with the new rules are eligible to take part,” the EBU added in its statement.

According to reports, Germany and Ukraine’s broadcasters offered public backing for Israel’s participation during the assembly debate, while those from Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Turkey — which is an EBU member but does not compete in Eurovision — called for the country to be ousted.

The final vote was 738 votes in favor of adopting the reforms without a vote on participation, 264 against and 120 abstentions (each country receives 24 votes divided among its broadcasters). That means only 11 countries voted to force a direct vote on Israel’s participation.

Israel was represented at the assembly by Kan director general Golan Yochpaz and attorney Ayala Mizrachi, who argued that a cultural boycott of Israel was indefensible and a slippery slope.

“The attempt to remove Kan from the contest can only be understood as a cultural boycott,” Yochpaz told EBU members, according to Kan. “A boycott may begin today with Israel, but no one knows where it will end or who else it may harm… Are EBU members willing to be part of a step that harms freedom of creation and freedom of expression?”

Yochpaz said Kan is proud of the songs and artists it has sent to Eurovision over the years, and “I will not stand here and apologize for our success.” He also stressed that Kan was not involved in any prohibited campaign intended to influence the results of this year’s competition.

A number of countries had expressed anger after Israel did exceedingly well in the popular votes in 2024 and 2025, and several of them alleged voter fraud in the televote. The EBU dismissed such claims, but unveiled a series of reforms last month to address such concerns, which were those adopted in Thursday’s EBU vote.

Under the reforms, votes per person will be capped at 10, rather than 20; the EBU will “discourage” governments from running public campaigns for their entrants, and bar contestants from coordinating with such campaigns; and professional juries will be brought back for the semifinal rounds, in conjunction with the popular vote.

The EBU said Thursday that broadcasters will now have to confirm their participation in the May 2026 competition in Vienna, and that the full list of participants will be announced before Christmas.

While Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands immediately confirmed they would quit the contest, a number of Israel critics are still weighing the decision.

Iceland’s public broadcaster said Thursday that its board would discuss its decision next week. The Eurovision Song Contest is tremendously popular in Iceland, where more than 96% of the TV viewing public tunes in each year to the competition.

Belgium’s RTBF said that it will also decide on its participation in the 2026 competition in the coming days.

The country’s two public broadcasters — French and Flemish — switch off, representing the country in the competition each year. While the Flemish VRT strongly backed an Israel boycott, the French-language RTBF, which is slated to represent the country in 2026, has been less strident in its criticism of Kan and Israel.

In announcing its decision to boycott, the Netherlands’ public broadcaster said that “after weighing all perspectives, AVROTROS concludes that, under the current circumstances, participation cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organization.”

Irish broadcaster RTE said it “feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza,” and that it will not participate in or broadcast next year’s contest.

A representative for Slovenia’s RTV SLO asserted at the assembly that the Eurovision has become “hostage to the political interests of the Israeli government,” according to the broadcaster.

And the director of Spain’s RTVE told EBU members that it considered the package of reforms to be “insufficient,” and that Israel has been using “the event for political objectives.”

Spain is a member of the “Big Five” Eurovision nations, which give the biggest financial contributions to the competition alongside France, Germany, the UK and Italy.

While the EBU had said in September that it was planning a vote of members on whether Israel would be allowed to stay in the contest, it scrapped the vote shortly after the current Gaza ceasefire went into effect.

Instead, it pushed off the decision to Thursday’s general assembly meeting, and said it hoped that members would adopt the package of reforms as sufficient to assuage any concerns.

While anti-Israel boycott activists have called for years for Israel to be kicked out of Eurovision, the campaign reached a fever pitch over the past two years, since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which sparked the two-year war in Gaza.

But the EBU consistently rejected such calls, maintaining that Eurovision was a contest between national broadcasters, not countries, and that Kan continued to meet all the criteria to compete. No countries backed out of either the 2024 or 2025 competitions over Israel’s inclusion.

Nevertheless, the anti-Israel furor heavily overshadowed the two most recent song contests, with headlines dominated by the protests, threats, boos and drama. That furor drove a backlash among the pro-Israel public, which mobilized to vote for Eden Golan in 2024 and Yuval Raphael in 2025, sending them soaring in the popular vote and infuriating the anti-Israel fan base even further.

Israel debuted in the 1973 Eurovision in Luxembourg and has missed the competition only three times since – 1980, 1984 and 1997 – when the dates conflicted with Memorial Day or Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Jewish state has won the contest four times, with only six other countries winning more competitions in Eurovision history. Israel won in 1978 with “A-ba-ni-bi” by Izhar Cohen; 1979 with Gali Atari’s “Hallelujah,” 1998 when Dana International won with “Diva” and in 2018, when Netta Barzilai’s “Toy” took the top spot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5806578&forum_id=2Reputation#49485853)