A handful of celebrities, singers, musicians, and entertainment personalities wrote an open letter to the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest expressing their rejection of attempts to ban Israel from joining the competition this year.
There had been attempts to ban the Middle Eastern country from participating in the music event following the country's brutal war on Israel.
Open Letter To Include Israel On Eurovision 2024
Billboard reports that the non-profit entertainment industry organization Creative Community for Peace signed an open letter rejecting attempts to ban Israel from competing at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.
Among the celebrities included were KISS' Gene Simmons, SB Projects and HYBE CEO Scooter Braun, Pop icon Boy George, Actresses Emmy Rossum, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Academy Award-winning songwriter Diane Waren, and music and TV personality Sharon Osbourne, among many others.
Creative Community for Peace's open letter supports the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)'s commitment to include the embattled country from this year. This was prompted by Swedish and Finnish artists demanding Israel's exclusion from the contest as they believed that the country "undermines" the spirit of the competition.
"We have been shocked and disappointed to see some members of the entertainment community calling for Israel to be banished from the Contest for responding to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust," the open letter reads. "Under the cover of thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately into civilian populations, Hamas murdered and kidnapped innocent men, women, and children."
CEO Scooter Braun said in a statement that these "boycott efforts" were a distraction from the "uplifting and unifying power of music."
"Music is a place for unity not division. It is a language that should always bring us together. Artists should never be discriminated against for who they are, who they love, or where they're born," he added.
Swedish Artists Wants To Ban Israel From Eurovision
Around 1,000 Swedish artists have appealed to the EBU to refuse the Eurovision Song Contest to allow Israel to join the competition. Malmö, Sweden, will be hosting this year's Eurovision Song Contest.
"We who sign this are 1,000 artists who believe in music as a unifying force. The Eurovision song contest began as a peace project with the ambition to unite countries and citizens through music," the letter read. "Allowing Israel's participation undermines not only the spirit of the competition but the entire public service mission. It also sends the signal that governments can commit war crimes without consequences. Therefore, we appeal to the EBU: Exclude Israel from the Eurovision song contest 2024."
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