It seems like such an easy call - give anyone who might bring unnecessary political pressure a ‘time out’. Could keep it entirely neutral like that if they wish to appear above the fray.

Would be better than what they did as allowing Israel this year can easily be seen as a very political endorsement.

The trouble is, of course, that the primary sponsor of the competition is Moroccanoil: an Israeli firm.

They're much worse.

I would not go as far that manipulation is the only reasonable explanation. Certainly Israeli lobby groups will have mobilized their people to vote extensively as participation in international events and the image of strong support are crucial for claiming legitimacy. As the article discusses the system of allowing up to 20 votes per number is favoring the ferverous.

There is three considerations from my side that i think need to be cleared:

1. There is allegations that Israel used targeted ads on social media to encourage people to vote. Imo. this should be banned and lead to disqualification if true, especially as the EBU keeps emphasizing that ESC would be unpolitical. Having a state or state aligned actor push adds for voting is an obvious contradiction. (leaving all the other obvious ones aside for the moment)
2. It must be laid open, how many "original" votes where cast for each candidate in each country and how many were multiple votes. This mechanism should be tossed out anyways. Someone willing to spend more money does not make his or her vote worth more than anyone elses. There remains the issue of multiple phone numbers per person, but that only gets amplified by allowing 20 votes on each of these phone numbers.
3. It mus be analyzed if there was direct manipulations and fake votes. If that turns out to be true, that should also be a disqualification and multi year ban for the participating broadcaster. This should be separate from questions of exclusion that should be mandated by the actions of the countries.

People who oppose Israel's participation didn't watch and didn't vote. That alone will have had an influence on the result. Even if they did vote, their votes were spread across dozens of other candidates.

Edit: I should've been more precise and said "many people". Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose.

That's how it works in a vote. You have 24 countries. Votes are spread across all of them. It doesn't require more than maybe 10% of the vote for one country to get 12 points. With some mobilisation by stupid Israel-supporters and targetted ads by Netanyahu and his crime gang, it's not that urealistic to get max points, even if the last 90% of potential voters hate the regime.

Israel is a member of the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), which organizes the song contest. This is also why geographically non-European countries like Azerbaijan and Georgia can participate.

It cannot be explained by putting politics aside. Having Israel be there is in itself a political choice.

Australia is an even a weirder choice.

This comment is really nice summation of why Israel are still in the ESC, but Russia were booted.

Tl;dr: Israel's national broadcaster is still (kinda) independent, so the European Broadcasting Union are keen to protect that. Russia's national broadcaster has been entirely subsumed by Putin's government, so no longer fulfills the requirements of EBU membership.

Same applies to football (soccer), the Israeli teams cannot play against their neighbors for obvious reasons unless it's a World Cup match. Those clowns should make peace.

Confession: I actually watched the ESC this year despite my moral qualms. Sorry.

But it really struck me how fake it has become. The "performances" in the final were just recordings of the ones shown in the qualifying rounds (probably weren't even live then). Words said by performers at the end of the song were chopped off. At the end when they showed clips of the performances with the performers in the "green room" reacting to them, pretty sure these were the same shots they used in the qualifying rounds. No continuous shots connecting the presenters to the performances. Every element of the show compartmentalized and combined using stock shots to fill in the gaps. Doesn't even resemble a live show. I wonder how much of this is required to ensure that nobody says anything about Israel, or shows or wears any unauthorised symbols, and that any undesired crowd noise can be edited (sounded like that happened when Israel phone vote was announced). Fucking weird.

Of course the ludicrously high phone vote for Israel was expected. But what is the deal with Switzerland's entry getting zero phone votes? That was really strange. Maybe the organizers agreed to donate all Switzerland's phone votes to Israel.

Anyway, the whole thing is so fake and fucked up, I won't be watching again. I feel sorry for the performers and the countries who try to contribute something good, it's just wasted on Eurovision.

Once again Italians are precursors, we were rigging Sanremo phone votes WAY before anyone thought of Eurovision

In a time of mass manipulation, propaganda, and war, I am skeptical of phone votes that can be automated via en masse bought SIM cards and a bit of software.

I love it. That week is a highlight in my year, where I can watch some fun performances and shitpost about it all on Mastodon. It’s great fun.

And yes, the competition is political by design, but that’s part of the fun. Imagine my shock when hearing that Cyprus gave Greece 12 points. Again. But the way Israel fuck it about every year really sours the whole thing.

Absolutely, a lot of people watch it as entertainment. For myself and the people I know it’s crazy, campy and funny entertainment first, a singing competition second and politics etc. a distant third.

I also watch it as a 20-odd year old straight man alongside my wife, encouraged by myself. (sexuality added due to common stereotypes). I find it entertaining; most singers this year used their native language and there's a fine variety of songs with some bangers from otherwise unknown artists, like the Italian representative.

I personally hope Israel will be banned next year and MoroccanOil removed as a sponsor. It grosses me out and I don't think I'd watch it next year

For the most part it can be great entertainment and i used to enjoy it for many years. Thinks started to become slightly weird for me, when i learned about the regime in Azerbaijan and not remembering anything to that extent being said in the mainstream media in Germany (or at least that i noticed) when it was there in 2012. Then things got more weird as Russia had annexed Crimea but was still allowed to participate, with there being some mention of it at least.

So i remember many years where politics did not play as much of a role and the "drama" was about the acts themselves or the national preselections. The preselections are always a drama in Germany as the German broadcasters work hard to get the most bland, boring and forgettable acts on instead of having any chance at winning.

It is a lot of fun, if it isn't tainted by criminal regimes using the stage to get legitimacy. In that sense ignorance can be a bliss and i don't know if i was just blissful because of that in the earlier years or if there was "a good old time".

I didn't know who Maneskin was until they won Eurovision, so I'd say so

Honestly, at this point it might actually do the US some good when state governments weren't elected by their own population, but the population of all the other states.