How is Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv, with Madonna invited and threatened with boycott?

With the parade of delegations for what they called the "orange carpet", this Sunday was inaugurated on 64th edition of Eurovision, the European music festival that attracts 180 million viewers each year and has seen stars like ABBAin 1974 or Celine Dion, in 1988.

Tel Aviv, the host city, chose the inaugural ceremony to be held in its cultural epicenter: Habima Square. It is a place surrounded by the Habima National Theater (which means "scene" in Hebrew), the Charles R. Bronfman Auditorium, home of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Pavilion. contemporary art Helena Rubinstein. May 14 and 16 will be the semi-finals and the 18th final with Madonna's presence as a guest. But the party will be extended to the streets, discos and public spaces of the city, where alternative celebrations will be made and allusive to a subculture with its own weight.

Established in 1956 by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to strengthen links between public broadcasters in Europe, The Eurovision adopted a message of pluralism and social acceptance. A message that has been adopted primarily by LGBT communities, as Allison Kaplan Sommer explains in an article recently published in Haaretz.

Over time, the festival has added to its organization allies from neighboring countries that are not part of the European Union. So, for example, countries such as Australia, Russia, Armenia or Georgia have competed, to name a few. Israel joined Israel in 1956 and since then has won four victories: in 1978 with Izhar Cohen, in 1979 with the version Hallelujah performed by Gali Atari and Milk & Honey, in 1998 with trans singer Dana International and in 2018 with Netta Barzilai Thanks to this latest triumph in Lisbon in 2018, Israel got the right to host this year's party.

Video: Izhar Cohen sings "Abanibi" in Eurovision 1978

The song chosen by Netta to represent Israel last year, "Toy", key pop dialogues with the Me Too movement, appeared months before and proposes a mbad feminism. With lyrics in English and some Hebrew touches, he says things like, "I'm not your toy, stupid little boy, do not play with me". The election of the theme, as well as the picturesque presence of Netta, made it possible to achieve what previously seemed unlikely: that Israel goes back with the Eurovision Medal, in a context in which some sectors are reinforcing their pressure to boycott Israel because of the situation. in Palestine.

Video: The Netta show at Eurovision 2018

From the moment it was announced that Tel-Aviv would be the host city of this edition, representatives of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) who proposes to isolate Israel from the international community have raised the voice for ask the artists to refuse to touch. The most famous voice in this sector is that of Roger Waters, former leader of Pink Floyd, who wrote a letter to Madonna The Guardian by asking him directly not to travel. In the letter, the English singer defending the Maduro regime tells Madonna that if she believes in human rights, she should not sing at the scheduled closing ceremony.

Video: The best moments of the final of Eurovision 2018

Although Madonna chose not to respond directly, other celebrities left for the Waters Pbad. Gene Simmons, of KISS; Sharon Osbourne, Stephen Fry and performer Marina Abramović joined the Creative Center for Peace's statement that: "We believe that the movement that advocates a cultural boycott is an affront to the Palestinians and Israelis who are striving to To achieve their goals. " peace through engagement, exchange and mutual recognition ".

"While we may all have differing views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the best path to peace, we agree that the cultural boycott is not the solution."

In the same vein, last week Netta, the 2018 laureate who will be in the final before Madonna, said: "The fact that we are on the same stage brings together people from so many countries, from cultures, regardless of religion or religion, ethnicity, makes it a festival of light and the boycott of light brings darkness.

Each edition of the competition is jointly funded by the European public television consortium and the public media of the host country. On this occasion, Israel has invested $ 42 million, which it hopes will be used to attract tourism fans who attend the concerts and occupy the place of the hotel during this intense week that has just begun. The conflict of the previous weekend in the Gaza Strip triggered alarms about the viability of the show. Now, the fear has been focused on the fact that a sympathetic BDS group is using the contest platform to convey an anti-Israeli message.

Video: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Netta, winner of 2018

The Icelandic representative, Hatari, is the one closest to this idea of ​​getting a message against the Eurovision policy of Israel. While this ensures that you will not make political statements on the stage (which is forbidden by the rules of the contest), use the spaces in the interviews with the media to publicize their position on the conflict.

This is not the first time that politics has entered the music festival. Kaplan Sommer recalls that in 1976, the representative of Greece sang against the Turkish occupation of Cyprus and that in 2009, Georgia was excluded from the contest for attempting to sing a song that said "We do not want to play ", in a play on words between the verbal expression of the English language and the surname of Russian President Vladimir Putin, host of this meeting. However, such events are prohibited by regulation, but the world will be attentive to any event likely to break this calm.

Kan, the Israeli public press, has launched a satirical musical over the past few hours to welcome tourists who have already begun to arrive and who, of course, have already sparked controversy:

In this edition, there will be 42 participants in competition. On May 14th and 16th, 36 of them will be presented in the two semi-finals which have been allocated by lottery, in groups of 18. The 6 others, in the meantime, have a guaranteed place in the final on Saturday 18 : Israel, to have the host country and the "big five": France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom (a little similar to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, although without the right of veto).

The rules of operation of Eurovision are so numerous and so discreet that it's easy to lose oneself. The important thing is to know that each of the 42 competitors has been chosen by the public media of their respective countries, in open or closed competitions, and that they have the right to sing a song. maximum duration of three minutes. They must sing live and without musicians on stage, only accompanied by a track.

And how is the winner determined? Each country has a jury of five professionals from the music industry, whose vote is worth 50%. The other half is completed by the public vote, which can be done by phone, SMS or via the official application. But these votes can not be made at any time or place: in each semifinal, only spectators from competing countries may vote, provided that they can not vote for themselves, and three of the countries having an badured place in the final, for the simple fact of having this privilege. The vote begins after the 18 songs of each semifinal have been played and only for 15 minutes.

The jury and the public can rate artists from 1 to 8, with a 10 or a 12 (yes, there is neither 9 nor 11). The 10 most voted singers in each semifinal move on to the grand final, where they will meet the six who should not have gone through this part of the competition.

During the final, the 26 selected artists will be presented and on this occasion, they will be able to vote the spectators of all the countries in competition, even if they have not yet reached it. First, the vote of each national jury will be announced (one by one, the 42), then the number of votes of the combined audience of each country in competition will be obtained, from lowest to highest. In this way, you can only know the final result a few minutes before closing. Madonna will also be present as yapa, who will sing her hymn Like a Prayer and a new album song that she is about to release and from which she has presented singles.