I'm of the opinion that Israel's televote result was the result of cheating, and their entire 2024 participation should be retroactively declared invalid. That is entirely possible, especially if the scandals that may soon be revealed result in Martin Österdahl or other higher-ups being sacked because of their involvement in this.
I'm disappointed with many of the Eurofans who objected to Israel's participation or how they acted during the contest, and yet will somehow just calmly accept that the televote result was completely legit when there are so many reasons not to think so. I feel that most of them have been way too accepting of the result and simply haven't dared to claim what was obvious to me as soon as it was announced: that Israel's televote result was achieved by outright cheating. Here's why.
Here's a way too long and disorganized list of all the points i have come up with. It's taken way too long to write and i'm finally getting my thoughts together to post it.
First of, the jury-televote difference. By itself, it's simply unprecedented. Never since the separation of jury and televote points was introduced (i'm not sure about the years before that) has there been such a big difference in this direction (more televotes). 52 jury points and 323 televote points. When the jury points were announced, i thought they couldn't possibly get much more in the televote, since that usually doesn't happen. While the reverse does, like for Australia and Sweden in 2018, for an entry to score so much more in the televote is unprecedented. There might be some case i'm forgetting, but it's never been this extreme.
The hosts themselves seemed to do a double take. Like, is it supposed to say 32 or 23? They may also have seen some earlier results of polls that didn't match up with the actual results. Which brings up the next question. Where the HELL did all that sudden support for Israel's entry come from? Is there NO questions to ask at all?
Israel was not in the top 5 of most countries who gave them so many televote points. They were not one of the most popular entries. They did not have the most plays on streaming or scored highly in polls before the contest. That alone should be reason to be suspicious as hell of the result.
The Italians who "accidentally" revealed a televote result in the semi on screen may have intended to expose the televote fraud going on. The only ones involved so far to raise this question has been the Slovenian broadcaster, who wants to investigate where those Israel votes came from, as you can read below:
wiwibloggs.com
So how did they do it? My first guess was that they simply hired people in all these countries with cheap phone accounts to spam votes for them, but the cost of sending so many votes (especially in the countries with high population) would be so enormous that it's more likely they found a cheaper way. They may have found out a way to send votes without having to pay for them, which has been rumored in several national selections including Melodifestivalen previously, but it's never been claimed to happen in the ESC. Or, they straight up hacked the televote systems somehow, possibly involving an insider.
While this sounds outlandish even to me, there are many clues pointing to it. For example, in the first semi there was a joke by the hosts about something like "hope our entire system isn't hacked, then nothing would work" that seemed very unusual and out of place. Was that a hint inserted by a writer who had heard rumors of what was going to happen?
Also, several Eurovision and related websites went down from a hacker attack in the hours right before the contest started. Could this be directly connected to the televote fraud, or was it done as a diversion to keep all IT staff busy while they performed the televote hack?
The early opening of the voting in the final may have given them more time to perform the hack and distribute the sending of the votes in a way that looked less suspicious. Was there a conspiracy with the Swedish team who decided to make this change, just in order to enable the cheating? It's outlandish, but such things too often turn out to be true.
Another "smoking gun" to me is the Ukraine televote results. Strangely, Israel did NOT appear to be in their televote top 10, despite Ukraine being one of the most pro-Israel countries in Europe, for reasons we don't need to get into, and Croatia being the only other country not to give Israel any points.
My guess is, Israel's hacking or cheating simply didn't work in Ukraine because they somehow used another system to collect and count televotes. Hell, maybe they didn't bother with Ukraine because they thought they would get enough votes there anyway. But my point is, if Israel can't even make 10th place in Ukraine, how did they get so much in other countries?
Overall, the voting for Israel didn't seem to follow any sensible pattern. It's not related to the countries' outright Israel support, it's not the largest countries in population or viewers that have a lower result for Israel. There is a certain tendency for Russia-friendly countries (who tend to disagree with Israel) giving slighly less, but they were still in the top 5 with many of them, and the lower results there may have been deliberate to not raise too much suspicion.
There is simply NO UNIVERSE in which Israel was more popular than Croatia in so many countries. Especially not among the people who are actually going to vote in the contest at all. I heard from so many who deliberately voted for Croatia and/or Switzerland just to keep Israel from winning the televote, even though they would never have won in total anyway. Yet Israel was 1st in Sweden and many other countries - and by how much, exactly? Typically actual voting figures are never revealed, but can we hope for that to change this year? If they don't reveal them, what are they hiding?
Then there's the slightly-defensive claim that Israel organized political campaigns to get Israel supporters to vote for them in droves. The problem is, there really aren't that many Israel supporters (they're just disproportionally visible, especially on the web), and from what i know about those people (all too much) they're extremely unwilling to give their own money for any such cause.
These ridiculous "campaigns" could barely get support in Swedish anti-Muslim hate forums, for example, they got laughed out with "why the hell would anyone care about that" from the most extreme Israel supporters you could imagine. Even there nobody cared. Those who said they voted for Israel on social media probably didn't, they just hoped that saying it would make others vote more.
I'm thinking the "vote for Israel" campaigns was if anything, a coverup to make the televote results seem more believable. But here's the thing: If there were no voting farms or hacking, or if it can't be proven, just the fact that they ran these campaigns is enough reason to invalidate the televote result by itself. They were clearly supported by the Israeli broadcaster KAN and their acting has breached so much ethics that it should be out of the question. It's simply not normal Eurovision behavior.
The fact that pro-Israeli genocide, anti-Muslim hate factories promoted voting for Israel should be considered a breach of ethics. Even if all the televotes were from actual (however dumb) people sending their expensive televotes on regular phones, which i'll go to my grave refusing to believe.
Not to mention their backstage behavior, intentionally provoking artists and delegations, succeeding in getting Netherlands disqualified and attempting the same thing against Ireland, Switzerland and surely more. I'm genuinely surprised i haven't heard a single thing about it from Croatia, being one of the predicted winners, but maybe the Croatian team just chose not to say anything about it.
The compromise i could see happening is to ban Israel for their backstage antics, but keep the voting fraud secret to protect the EBU and Swedish higher-ups who may have been involved. This would still be unsatisfactory to me. It's not just about banning Israel for the near future, it's about declaring the 2024 result invalid.
Because Israel is using the televote result to claim that people all over Europe support them, and the extreme pro-genocide haters see it as a sign that Europe wants a anti-Muslim genocide, even though there's almost no vocal support for Israel's actions in the public. That is why the result needs to be nullified. Because it is propaganda for Israel.
Hell, i'm not even against Israel in the contest entirely. I supported "Golden Boy" in 2015 for being a great comeback after sending nothing but unremarkable entries, and found the 2018-2022 entries all decent, even a bit underrated at times, but they also had no political significance, neither the songs themselves or by the circumstances of their participation.
Even the dreadful "Unicorn" had no subtext or forced political significance to the country, though the jury 2nd place was completely unwarranted. Which makes one wonder if they bribed the juries in 2023, thinking it would score super well with televotes, and since that didn't work so well, they went for hacking the televotes this year instead?
And where were all those fanatics whining about political bias when Israel actually sent good entries without political subtext? It only matters now because they have a genocide to defend!
Back then the pro-Israel lunatics didn't even care that Eurovision existed (though there was some usual whining when their 2013 and 2014 entries didn't make the final) and i saw their participation as being outside of the politics of the nation, like Russia when they were at their best (though Sergey's 2016 participation was made unnecessarily political, and their "peace anthems" were ridiculous and musically quite weak) but this year, there was just no way to separate their participation from politics.
I'm so sick of hearing that "Hurricane" wasn't political, used as a defense by the same people who obviously think it IS political, since they were so hysterical about supporting it. The same Israelis and pro-Israel shills who claim "it should be about music, not politics" cheer over the result of Israel this year, because to them it proves.... what? They said it wasn't political but now it is?
So to sum it up, the only way the EBU can prove they have any decency left is to essentially remove Israel's 2024 participation from ESC history, retroactively declaring it invalid. Everyone needs to be told that Israel cheated at the televote results. That would destroy its propaganda value. It won't bring any of their victims back, but it's the best the EBU can do.
I'm disappointed with many of the Eurofans who objected to Israel's participation or how they acted during the contest, and yet will somehow just calmly accept that the televote result was completely legit when there are so many reasons not to think so. I feel that most of them have been way too accepting of the result and simply haven't dared to claim what was obvious to me as soon as it was announced: that Israel's televote result was achieved by outright cheating. Here's why.
Here's a way too long and disorganized list of all the points i have come up with. It's taken way too long to write and i'm finally getting my thoughts together to post it.
First of, the jury-televote difference. By itself, it's simply unprecedented. Never since the separation of jury and televote points was introduced (i'm not sure about the years before that) has there been such a big difference in this direction (more televotes). 52 jury points and 323 televote points. When the jury points were announced, i thought they couldn't possibly get much more in the televote, since that usually doesn't happen. While the reverse does, like for Australia and Sweden in 2018, for an entry to score so much more in the televote is unprecedented. There might be some case i'm forgetting, but it's never been this extreme.
The hosts themselves seemed to do a double take. Like, is it supposed to say 32 or 23? They may also have seen some earlier results of polls that didn't match up with the actual results. Which brings up the next question. Where the HELL did all that sudden support for Israel's entry come from? Is there NO questions to ask at all?
Israel was not in the top 5 of most countries who gave them so many televote points. They were not one of the most popular entries. They did not have the most plays on streaming or scored highly in polls before the contest. That alone should be reason to be suspicious as hell of the result.
The Italians who "accidentally" revealed a televote result in the semi on screen may have intended to expose the televote fraud going on. The only ones involved so far to raise this question has been the Slovenian broadcaster, who wants to investigate where those Israel votes came from, as you can read below:
RTV SLO questions the EBU over Slovenia's televote results and calls for a more democratic decision-making process at Eurovision
Slovenia's broadcaster RTV SLO has questioned the EBU on the events of Eurovision 2024, including the televote result and anti-booing tech.
wiwibloggs.com
So how did they do it? My first guess was that they simply hired people in all these countries with cheap phone accounts to spam votes for them, but the cost of sending so many votes (especially in the countries with high population) would be so enormous that it's more likely they found a cheaper way. They may have found out a way to send votes without having to pay for them, which has been rumored in several national selections including Melodifestivalen previously, but it's never been claimed to happen in the ESC. Or, they straight up hacked the televote systems somehow, possibly involving an insider.
While this sounds outlandish even to me, there are many clues pointing to it. For example, in the first semi there was a joke by the hosts about something like "hope our entire system isn't hacked, then nothing would work" that seemed very unusual and out of place. Was that a hint inserted by a writer who had heard rumors of what was going to happen?
Also, several Eurovision and related websites went down from a hacker attack in the hours right before the contest started. Could this be directly connected to the televote fraud, or was it done as a diversion to keep all IT staff busy while they performed the televote hack?
The early opening of the voting in the final may have given them more time to perform the hack and distribute the sending of the votes in a way that looked less suspicious. Was there a conspiracy with the Swedish team who decided to make this change, just in order to enable the cheating? It's outlandish, but such things too often turn out to be true.
Another "smoking gun" to me is the Ukraine televote results. Strangely, Israel did NOT appear to be in their televote top 10, despite Ukraine being one of the most pro-Israel countries in Europe, for reasons we don't need to get into, and Croatia being the only other country not to give Israel any points.
My guess is, Israel's hacking or cheating simply didn't work in Ukraine because they somehow used another system to collect and count televotes. Hell, maybe they didn't bother with Ukraine because they thought they would get enough votes there anyway. But my point is, if Israel can't even make 10th place in Ukraine, how did they get so much in other countries?
Overall, the voting for Israel didn't seem to follow any sensible pattern. It's not related to the countries' outright Israel support, it's not the largest countries in population or viewers that have a lower result for Israel. There is a certain tendency for Russia-friendly countries (who tend to disagree with Israel) giving slighly less, but they were still in the top 5 with many of them, and the lower results there may have been deliberate to not raise too much suspicion.
There is simply NO UNIVERSE in which Israel was more popular than Croatia in so many countries. Especially not among the people who are actually going to vote in the contest at all. I heard from so many who deliberately voted for Croatia and/or Switzerland just to keep Israel from winning the televote, even though they would never have won in total anyway. Yet Israel was 1st in Sweden and many other countries - and by how much, exactly? Typically actual voting figures are never revealed, but can we hope for that to change this year? If they don't reveal them, what are they hiding?
Then there's the slightly-defensive claim that Israel organized political campaigns to get Israel supporters to vote for them in droves. The problem is, there really aren't that many Israel supporters (they're just disproportionally visible, especially on the web), and from what i know about those people (all too much) they're extremely unwilling to give their own money for any such cause.
These ridiculous "campaigns" could barely get support in Swedish anti-Muslim hate forums, for example, they got laughed out with "why the hell would anyone care about that" from the most extreme Israel supporters you could imagine. Even there nobody cared. Those who said they voted for Israel on social media probably didn't, they just hoped that saying it would make others vote more.
I'm thinking the "vote for Israel" campaigns was if anything, a coverup to make the televote results seem more believable. But here's the thing: If there were no voting farms or hacking, or if it can't be proven, just the fact that they ran these campaigns is enough reason to invalidate the televote result by itself. They were clearly supported by the Israeli broadcaster KAN and their acting has breached so much ethics that it should be out of the question. It's simply not normal Eurovision behavior.
The fact that pro-Israeli genocide, anti-Muslim hate factories promoted voting for Israel should be considered a breach of ethics. Even if all the televotes were from actual (however dumb) people sending their expensive televotes on regular phones, which i'll go to my grave refusing to believe.
Not to mention their backstage behavior, intentionally provoking artists and delegations, succeeding in getting Netherlands disqualified and attempting the same thing against Ireland, Switzerland and surely more. I'm genuinely surprised i haven't heard a single thing about it from Croatia, being one of the predicted winners, but maybe the Croatian team just chose not to say anything about it.
The compromise i could see happening is to ban Israel for their backstage antics, but keep the voting fraud secret to protect the EBU and Swedish higher-ups who may have been involved. This would still be unsatisfactory to me. It's not just about banning Israel for the near future, it's about declaring the 2024 result invalid.
Because Israel is using the televote result to claim that people all over Europe support them, and the extreme pro-genocide haters see it as a sign that Europe wants a anti-Muslim genocide, even though there's almost no vocal support for Israel's actions in the public. That is why the result needs to be nullified. Because it is propaganda for Israel.
Hell, i'm not even against Israel in the contest entirely. I supported "Golden Boy" in 2015 for being a great comeback after sending nothing but unremarkable entries, and found the 2018-2022 entries all decent, even a bit underrated at times, but they also had no political significance, neither the songs themselves or by the circumstances of their participation.
Even the dreadful "Unicorn" had no subtext or forced political significance to the country, though the jury 2nd place was completely unwarranted. Which makes one wonder if they bribed the juries in 2023, thinking it would score super well with televotes, and since that didn't work so well, they went for hacking the televotes this year instead?
And where were all those fanatics whining about political bias when Israel actually sent good entries without political subtext? It only matters now because they have a genocide to defend!
Back then the pro-Israel lunatics didn't even care that Eurovision existed (though there was some usual whining when their 2013 and 2014 entries didn't make the final) and i saw their participation as being outside of the politics of the nation, like Russia when they were at their best (though Sergey's 2016 participation was made unnecessarily political, and their "peace anthems" were ridiculous and musically quite weak) but this year, there was just no way to separate their participation from politics.
I'm so sick of hearing that "Hurricane" wasn't political, used as a defense by the same people who obviously think it IS political, since they were so hysterical about supporting it. The same Israelis and pro-Israel shills who claim "it should be about music, not politics" cheer over the result of Israel this year, because to them it proves.... what? They said it wasn't political but now it is?
So to sum it up, the only way the EBU can prove they have any decency left is to essentially remove Israel's 2024 participation from ESC history, retroactively declaring it invalid. Everyone needs to be told that Israel cheated at the televote results. That would destroy its propaganda value. It won't bring any of their victims back, but it's the best the EBU can do.
