No Music For Genocide has today issued a landmark open letter, calling for Israel to be banned from the Eurovision Song Contest, set to be held for in Vienna this May. While Russia remains banned for their invasion of Ukraine, this will be the third consecutive year Israel will appear at Eurovision, amid more than 30 months of genocide in Palestine.
In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would ‘bring the competition into disrepute’. The letter asks why the same standard has not been applied to Israel.
You can sign the letter here.
No Music For Genocide (NMFG), the cultural boycott movement that has united over 1,000 artists and labels in removing their music from all streaming platforms in Israel, amidst its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and its brutal regime of apartheid and occupation throughout historic Palestine – has today published an open letter, signed by musicians and cultural workers, calling on fans to boycott Eurovision until the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) bans Israel’s public broadcaster KAN from the 70th Eurovision Song Contest.
Signed by artists including Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Kneecap, Hot Chip, Of Monsters and Men, IDLES, Primal Scream, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Mogwai, Black Country New Road, Erika de Casier, Nadine Shah, Dry Cleaning, Ólafur Arnalds, David Holmes, Nemahsis, Macklemore, Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel, Salute, Vacations, Smerz, Mechatok, Olof Dreijer from The Knife, as well as a number of former Eurovision finalists – the open letter calls on public broadcasters, performers, screening party organisers, crew and fans, to refuse to participate in, or platform Eurovision, until the EBU applies the same standards to Israel that it applied to Russia, following its illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
This May marks the third consecutive year Israel will appear at Eurovision – the world’s largest music event, drawing 166 million viewers last year, surpassing the Super Bowl and Grammys combined – amid more than 30 months of genocide in Palestine, while Russia remains banned. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would ‘bring the competition into disrepute’. The letter asks why the same standard has not been applied to Israel.
Israel’s violence extends beyond Palestine – since March 2026, it has escalated a full-scale ethnic cleansing campaign in Lebanon, killing more than two thousand people, including hundreds of children, displacing more than one million, and drawing condemnation from UN experts, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for systematic violations of international humanitarian law. Its strikes on Iran – condemned by over 100 international law experts as violations of the UN Charter – further illustrate a pattern of unchecked aggression that the international community has failed to confront.
The letter welcomes the withdrawals of broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia and the Netherlands, and acknowledges the national selection finalists – including in Portugal and Italy – who pledged not to represent their countries in Vienna this year if they had won.
Kneecap says: “Russia was banned from Eurovision in 2022. Israel has been murdering Palestinians for decades and is now committing genocide – and for the third year running, they’re welcomed back onto the stage. That’s not neutrality. That’s a choice. We’ve paid a price for speaking out – lost gigs, court cases, visa bans – and we’d do it all again tomorrow. Silence is complicity. We stand with No Music for Genocide and every artist, fan and broadcaster who refuses to let the world’s biggest music event be used to whitewash genocide. No stage for genocide. Free Palestine”.
NMFG organisers says: “Every year, for its entire 53-year tenure as a Eurovision participant, Israel has perpetuated its terrorising systems of apartheid, torture, land theft, and military occupation against Palestinians from the river to the sea with complete impunity. While many of us in the industry make light of Eurovision or doubt our own power as cultural producers, genocidal Israel’s leaders speak openly about the contest’s geopolitical value. NMFG stands with and amplifies the incredible grassroots organizing efforts across Europe to boycott Eurovision until Israel is banned. From PACBI to direct actionists, from Film Workers For Palestine in Hollywood to striking dockworkers in Italy and Morocco, people of conscience around the globe are fighting complicity in every industry for a free Palestine and a freer world”.
No Music For Genocide is a cultural boycott initiative led by 1000+ artists and labels who’ve removed their music from all platforms in Israel as it kills without consequence on the world stage. It launched in response to Israel’s genocide in Palestine; decades-long occupation and ethnic cleansing; apartheid within Israel / ’48; political repression of Pro-Palestine efforts around the world; and the music industry’s own ties to weapons and war crimes. NMFG is inspired by the successful cultural boycotts against apartheid South Africa.
Kicked off in September 2025, NMFG has since grown into a worldwide movement with boycotters including Björk, Lorde, Hayley Williams, Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., Clairo, the Estate of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Denzel Curry, Primal Scream, Kneecap, Massive Attack, Faye Webster, NTS and more, receiving widespread coverage from NPR, NME, Pitchfork, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Resident Advisor, Al Jazeera, Pigeons & Planes, and Novara Media.
The full open letter is published below.
OPEN LETTER:
This May, millions of people are expected to tune in to the 70th Eurovision Song Contest. For the third consecutive year, they’ll find Israel celebrated onstage despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza, while Russia remains banned for its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
As musicians and cultural workers, many living within the reaches of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), we reject Eurovision being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians.
We stand in solidarity with Palestinian calls for public broadcasters, performers, screening party organisers, crew, and fans to boycott Eurovision until the EBU bans complicit Israeli broadcaster KAN.
We applaud the principled withdrawals of the Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Slovenian, and Dutch broadcasters, and the many national selection finalists committing to refuse to go to Eurovision. Just as artists stood against oppression in South Africa, we stand together now.
Apartheid Israel’s president Isaac Herzog – named in South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice for inciting to genocide – has played a leading role in lobbying broadcasters not to ban Israel from the contest, the world’s most-watched live music event.
The EBU’s hypocritical responses to Russia’s and Israel’s crimes have removed any illusion of Eurovision’s claimed “neutrality”. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia’s presence would “bring the competition into disrepute”.
Yet more than 30 months of genocide in Gaza – alongside ethnic cleansing and land theft in the besieged West Bank – aren’t considered sufficient to apply the same policy to Israel.
How can any performer or Eurovision fan in good conscience participate at the contest’s next edition in Austria amidst US-Israeli plans for hyper-surveilled concentration camps in ‘New Gaza’? There are moments in time when passive silence is not an option.
We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.
As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry.
No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.
Signed: Brian Eno, Massive Attack, Paloma Faith, Paul Weller, Kneecap, Hot Chip, Of Monsters and Men, IDLES, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Mogwai, Black Country New Road, Nadine Shah, Dry Cleaning, David Holmes, Salute, Vacations + more
Follow NMFG on Instagram.
