<\/p>\n
Netta, of Israel, celebrates after winning the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest grand final in Lisbon, Portugal. (AP Photo\/Armando Franca)<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 entertainment figures have signed a letter rejecting an Israel boycott and pushing for the country\u2019s continued inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n
Multiple countries, including Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain, have announced withdrawals from the song competition over Israel\u2019s inclusion.<\/p>\n
This will be the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, which is set to take place in Vienna in May.<\/p>\n
The open letter<\/a> against the boycotts<\/a> was signed by Gene Simmons<\/strong>, Scooter Braun<\/strong>, Amy Schumer<\/strong>, Sharon Osbourne<\/strong>, and others. An initial letter included 400 signatures, and that number has now climbed to over 1,000.<\/p>\n \u201cThe letter comes in response to others who have demanded that Israel be disinvited from the contest. The letter highlights Eurovision\u2019s unique ability to unify people from diverse backgrounds and music\u2019s capacity to effect positive change in the world. The letter states that the annual event, with more viewers than the Super Bowl, is a celebration of unity and should not be used as a tool for politics,\u201d a press release from the non-profit group Creative Community for Peace reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n Campaigns calling for the removal of Israel from the contest cite the country\u2019s conduct in global conflicts, like its strikes on Gaza<\/a> in its war against Hamas.<\/p>\n Spain was the most notable country to boycott the contest. The country\u2019s national broadcaster also said they will not be airing the event. Spain is considered one of the \u201cbig five\u201d in the Eurovision contest. They, along with France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, are sent straight to the Grand Final event each time. These countries are all the biggest financial sponsors of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the annual music event.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic unites people from all backgrounds. It\u2019s the one language that everyone can understand. It\u2019s a beautiful thing and a great way to bring people together. Those advocating to exclude an Israeli singer from Eurovision don\u2019t move the needle towards peace, but only further divide the world,\u201d Simmons said in a statement.<\/p>\n Osbourne said in her own statement that musicians are being \u201cdragged into the angry, misinformed politics of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAttempts to exclude Israelis from the international stage twist art into a tool of division and erode the shared humanity that the arts are meant to preserve. I\u2019ve watched this play out for over three years, and it just breaks my heart,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Other entertainment figures who signed the open letter in support of Israel include Mila Kunis<\/strong>, Jerry O\u2019Connell<\/strong>, Helen Mirren<\/strong>, Liev Schreiber<\/strong>, Boy George<\/strong>, and others.<\/p>\n The post Over 1,000 Entertainment Figures \u2014 Including Gene Simmons and Amy Schumer \u2014 Reject Eurovision Israel Boycott<\/a> first appeared on Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Netta, of Israel, celebrates after winning the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest grand final in Lisbon, Portugal. (AP Photo\/Armando Franca) More than 1,000 entertainment figures have signed a letter rejecting an Israel boycott and pushing for the country\u2019s continued inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest. Multiple countries, including Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain, have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2377935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[377772,462900,321272,348513,308806],"class_list":["post-2377934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-amy-schumer","tag-entertainment-figures","tag-eurovision-song-contest","tag-gene-simmons","tag-israel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Over-1000-Entertainment-Figures-\u2014-Including-Gene-Simmons-and-Amy.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2377934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2377936,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377934\/revisions\/2377936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2377935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2377934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2377934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2377934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}