An AOAV review of Eurovision voting data suggests that Israel has seen an major rise in public telephone voting for their bands since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, even as voting from the professional Eurovision jurors declined. It raises the spectre of voting manipulation intended to give a sense of widespread support for Israel, even as their military faces equally widespread questions of genocide.
There appears to be a major difference between the popular telephone vote and judge voting at Europe’s largest televised cultural event. And it begs the question: has there been informaly orchestrated voting by the Isreali diaspora and Jewish communities intended to give symbolic legitimacy to Israel’s actions in Gaza on an international entertainment platform.
The brief analysis focused on Eurovision voting era from 2016 onwards, when the contest adopted its current split-vote system. Since 2016, each participating country is able to award two separate sets of points: one from a professional jury and one from a public televote. Earlier Eurovision voting data merged jury and public voting so could not be analysed.
The data since 2016 show that Israel’s two strongest public vote performances have been in 2024 and 2025. This followed the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent Gaza war.
In 2024, Israel secured 14.7% of all available public vote points. In 2025, it secured 13.5%.
No previous Israeli entry had achieved comparable televote percentages. Notably, in those two years, Israel’s jury support also collapsed.
In 2023, before the attacks, Israel’s entry song “Unicorn” received very similar backing votes from juries and viewers: with 185 public points and 177 jury points. A year later, that split was to change dramatically.
Israel’s 2024 entry song “Hurricane” won 323 public points but only got 52 jury points. In 2025, Israel again won 297 public points but gt just 60 jury points.
This data set shows the pattern:
| Year | Public vote share | Jury vote share |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 0.5% | 5.1% |
| 2017 | 0.2% | 1.4% |
| 2018 | 12.7% | 8.5% |
| 2019 | 1.5% | 0% |
| 2021 | 0.9% | 3.2% |
| 2022 | 0% | 0% |
| 2023 | 8.4% | 8.2% |
| 2024 | 14.7% | 2.4% |
| 2025 | 13.5% | 2.8% |
Eurovision juries were specifically reintroduced to reduce bloc voting and politically driven public campaigns. This does not seem to have worked out.
The European Broadcasting Union has already said it has concerns around organised voting activity.
The Telegraph, a British newspaper, has reported that Eurovision organisers have already warned Israel’s broadcaster of their event in 2026 after promotional videos encouraged viewers to “vote 10 times” for the Israeli entry. Eurovision director Martin Green said it was “not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition”.
From an armed violence perspective, this mobilisation of popular support goes beyond entertainment.
Eurovision is one of the largest shared television events in Europe, with audiences reaching at least 150 million people. The public vote, then, carries political weight. A strong televote gives an appearance of international solidarity, even when institutional or governmental concern about Israel’s actions in Gaza across Europe are clearly seen.
All that glitters is not, in this case, gold. Eurovision has a duty to work out how to stop this happening in future.
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