The UN and Eurovision: A tale of two votes on Israel - analysis

We want the world to understand us, to like us.

Every nation feels this way, but for Israelis, it might -- because of Jewish history -- even be more pronounced than among others. We feel that our survival might very well be dependent on the goodwill -- the affection -- of others.

That is one desire.

Israel fights to survive

But Israelis also want to survive. And, as the author Micah Goodman pointed out in a recent podcast, these two desires -- to be loved and to survive -- tend to be contradictory.

Why? Because for the Jewish state to survive in this neighborhood, surrounded by those who want to destroy it, it needs to be feared, and to be feared, the country will have to take actions that will cost it love in some quarters.

The Gaza war is the quintessential example.

The only way for Israel to survive is to win the war convincingly 

To survive in this region, Israel needs to win this war convincingly -- its enemies need to see a massive victory to be deterred from attacking in the future, and potential allies -- such as Saudi Arabia -- need to see a convincing victory so they know that when they pay a cost for normalizing ties with Israel, that it is worth it, that it pays benefits.

 The Saudis and others are not going to want to establish ties with Israel if Israel can’t win. If Israel can’t roundly defeat Hamas, then what do they need a relationship for certainly, a country that can’t beat a terrorist organization with 40,000 fighters can’t defend itself from Iran and its proxies.

Israel, therefore, is beset by these two conflicting desires: to be loved and to be feared. Being loved is nice, but being feared is a prerequisite for survival. 

Asked to choose between the two, the vast majority of Israelis will choose survival -- which is why the country backed and, for the most part, continues to back the war in Gaza despite the opprobrium hurled at it in the process.

Still, Israelis also yearn to be loved.

That desire was showcased in the nation’s reaction to Eden Golan’s moving performance at the Eurovision on Saturday night.

As Fraser Nelson wrote in the Spectator: “For those who want to understand European politics, more can be learned from Eurovision voting than in watching a year of European Parliament debates. It’s a scene of diplomatic drama, where hatchets are buried or battle lines drawn.”

Israelis followed the voting closely, using it as a gauge of whether the world -- or at least that part of the world that participates in Eurovision -- hates them as much as it seems. 

It was then a pleasant surprise to wake up and see that if, indeed, Eurovision is a measure of a country’s popularity as much as a vote of approval or disapproval of a particular song, then Israel’s position is not as bad as we thought: Israel took fifth place in the contest out of 25 countries that performed in the finals  Saturday night.

Moreover, at least for those looking for any silver lining in these troubled days,, had the voting been only dependent on audience approval -- not a jury of judges from each country -- then Israel would have finished in second place.

Not bad at all -- in fact, remarkable, considering all the controversy and background noise leading up to and during the contest: whether Israel should be allowed to participate, what words were acceptable in its song, the booing in the audience, the snubs by Golan’s fellow artists, and the protests in the streets.

Israel's fifth-place Eurovision win 

Second place among the audience votes and fifth overall, not too bad at all. There have only been ten times since Israel began participating in this contest in 1973 that an Israeli entry scored higher than Golan did Saturday night.

What does it mean? Perhaps, if Nelson is correct, that Israel’s overall standing in certain countries in Europe is not as bad as we think. 

For instance, Israel scored the highest (12 points) among the audience in no less than 14 countries, including some countries whose governments are anything but friendly: such as Spain and Portugal. The audience in Britain gave Israel 12 points, while the jury of judges did not give it even a point.

How can we explain the inconsistency between what the people thought and how the judges voted? Some might say that the audience votes were the result of an organized campaign from the Jewish community and the foreign ministry to get people to vote. 

Others might say that the respective juries, made up of members of the artistic world, are following the woke herd mentality when it comes to Israel.

It also could be the result of sympathy: people watching at home, hearing the boos in the audience, and having sympathy for the likable, 20-year-old Golan just trying to belt out a song.  It could also be a way to express a dislike for anti-Israel protests taking place in the local streets, a way of saying: you may want to cancel Israel, but we don’t.

Whatever the reasons -- likely a combination of all of the above -- for a country eager to be loved and feeling now so badly misunderstood, this Eurovision voting provided a brief moment of pleasure.Not so another beauty-contest style vote on Israel: this one at the United Nations where the General Assembly, by a vote of 143-9, with 25 abstentions, backed the Palestinian bid for full membership, upgraded its status in the world body and recommended to the UN Security Council that it favorably reconsider the matter of granting full member status to the Palestinians. Last month, the US vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have done just that.

While the Eurovision voting could give Israelis some solace -- perhaps Israel’s standing in the world is not as bad as it seems -- this vote gives them reason for concern.

A similar vote in the General Assembly in 2012, granting the Palestinians non-member observer state status following the failure of the Security Council to approve a statehood recommendation, passed by 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

In other words, in the ensuing 12 years -- a period that included a huge diplomatic push by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to improve Israel’s situation around the world --the country’s standing in the international body is worse, not better than it was.

In September 2017, at the height of Netanyahu’s travels around the world to pave the way for new ties -- travels that took him to areas Israeli prime ministers have never gone before -- Rwanda and Colombia, Mexico, Singapore and Australia, Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly: “We’re in the midst of a great revolution, a revolution in Israel’s standing among the nations. This is happening because so many countries around the world have finally woken up to what Israel can do for them.”

After 70 years, Netanyahu said at the General Assembly meeting that year, “The world is embracing Israel, and Israel is embracing the world.”

If the UN General Assembly vote on Friday is any indication, that momentum has been stopped in its tracks. Israel lost ground in this vote compared to 2012 in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, where stalwart friends like Guatemala and Panama -- which abstained last time -- voted with the Palestinians this time around.

 On the plus side of the ledger, however, Argentina -- which voted against Israel in 2012, voted for it this time around.

In Asia, Korea and Singapore, which abstained in 2012, voted this time around for the Palestinians, , and while in 2021 five African countries abstained, this time only Malawi did.

The diplomatic push Netanyahu referred to in 2017 -- a time when he was among the few in the world who was talking regularly with the leaders of the US, Russia, China, and India -- has stopped. 

Canada abstained this time, while the last time it voted with Israel, while Australia, which abstained last time, voted for the Palestinians on Friday.

The vote among the 27 European Union countries was very similar this time to last time. In 2021, 14 EU countries voted for the Palestinians, one -- the Czech Republic -- voted for Israel, and 12 abstained.

This year, the scorecard was 14 for the Palestinians, 2 for Israel -- the Czech Republic and Hungary --  and 11 abstentions. What changed was not the overall scorecard in Europe but rather the way the countries voted.

Finland, Italy, Sweden, and Austria -- countries that voted for the Palestinians in 2012, abstained this time around -- reflecting governmental changes in those countries, while Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Poland, who abstained in 2012, voted against Israel on Friday.

The way the Europeans voted both at the UN on the Palestinian state issue and at home on their favorite Eurovision song indicates that contrary to a perception one can walk away with after watching the nightly news, an anti-Israel wave has not entirely swept the continent.  

The situation in Europe for Israel may look bleak, but it is not completely dark.