A group calling for the end of Israel wants Aiko out of Eurovision. Because Israel is also competing this year

The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is just around the corner and fans around the world can’t wait to hear their favorites from each country. The Czech Republic will be represented by singer Alena Shirmanova, who performs under the pseudonym Aiko. However, her participation has been surrounded by controversy ever since she succeeded in the national round of the competition in December. Now they are asking her to withdraw due to the fact that Israel is among the competing countries.

Aiko’s participation in Eurovision was widely discussed at the end of last year. It turned out that she violated the official rules of the competition with her song Pedestal. There aren’t many of them, but one of the most important is that the competition song can’t be released before September 1st of the previous year, and not only can’t they be released, but the artists with the songs can’t perform in front of any audience. And that’s exactly what Aiko seemed to have violated. At the end of last year, videos were circulated on social networks, in which it is proven that Aiko performed the song already in the summer. In the end, there was no withdrawal or disqualification.

Now people are calling for the end of Aiko in the competition for political reasons. An open call to the singer Aiko to withdraw from Eurovision 2024 and to boycott her is circulating on social networks. Supposedly out of solidarity with the Palestinian people and in line with the Palestinian campaign for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, i.e. with Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Israel is one of the competing countries, and for several months there has been a debate on social networks about the fact that the Israeli contestant Eden Golan should be disqualified. But when this did not happen, the Prague 4 Palestine Youth organization decided to call for Aiko’s resignation.

“We believe that including Israel in Eurovision reflects the willingness of the international community to tolerate, ignore or even legitimize its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We also believe that participation in the competition means not only support for this legitimization, but also the normalization of the long-term oppression of the Palestinian people,” the authors write a call to the singer Aiko.

They are also bothered by the fact that the competition is presented as apolitical, but despite this, the organizers only support one side of the conflict, and mainly the bad one, according to them. In 2022, Russia was excluded from the competition due to the war conflict in Ukraine, which, according to the authors of the challenge, the organizers should do this time as well. It is said to be the same principle.

It is also necessary to point out that the Prague 4 Palestine Youth organization has had many controversies behind it. Not only do they use slogans like “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, their event at the Angel Awards this Easter has also been much discussed recently.

The artists, including Tomáš Klus with his wife Tamara, Jordan Haj and Emma Smetana, even before the start of the live broadcast, unfurled a banner on the red carpet with the inscription Artists for Ceasefire and called for a “ceasefire”. The entire organization is, as the name suggests, convinced that Israel is responsible for the genocide in Gaza. In addition, their Instagram is full of messages about all the bad things Israel has done wrong, and they are obviously convinced that the Palestinian side of the conflict is innocent.

Of course, Palestine is not synonymous with Hamas, which started the situation in Gaza, but it nevertheless has a significant say in its territory. And it is precisely against Hamas that the organization Prague 4 Palestine Youth still has not defined itself. However, they defined themselves, for example, against President Petar Pavlov, who visited Israel in January. They have a photo of him on Instagram with a bloody inscription “I went to Israel to support the genocide of Palestinian children”. Their Instagram is full of similar demagogic posts.