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How come Israel keeps getting 12 points from us in the Eurovision public vote? (feddit.uk)

submitted 4 days ago by twinnie@feddit.uk to c/askuk@feddit.uk

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I mean, there's obviously something going on. Public sentiment towards Ukraine is still strong and you still see yellow and blue flags flying but sympathy for Israel was never as strong and it's since massively died off given how they've reacted. The vote is clearly not a reflection of genuine public opinion. But what's going on, are certain people just voting loads of times?

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[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago

Ukraine's song wasn't particularly good this year*, which will have made it harder for people to support if they cared about the integrity of Eurovision as a song competition.
Some people will just vote for whichever country most recently had a major tragedy and the initial attack on Ukraine was less recent than the initial attack on Israel. They won't necessarily think about anything that's happened other than that.
The Israel's contestant survived the October the 7th attack narrative has been pushed pretty hard, so that might have encouraged Israel supporters to watch Eurovision when they'd normally not have bothered. There wasn't anything equivalent to draw in Ukraine supporters who don't normally engage with Eurovision.
People voting for a particular country are going to have a much easier time than people voting for songs they like - there's only one Israel, but there are plenty of pop songs to split the pop fan vote.
If you watch/listen to a vox pop on the news, there are an astounding number of people who believe either that Israel have only killed armed Hamas combatants, have done a minimal proportionate response solely to rescue hostages, or have the right to ethnically cleanse Palestine because they think Hamas attacked first with no provocation and don't think ethnic cleansing is bad.

*the few times I've watched Eurovision, I've not agreed with the public or jury, so my definition of not particularly good might not be relevant.