Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called for Israel to be banned from Eurovision because of the “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza. Sanchez commented after the European Song Contest, in which Israeli Yuval Raphael finished second, ended in a landslide.
Spain’s state-run broadcaster RTVE has also asked the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to change the contest’s voting system. They say it is essential to rule out conflicts such as the Gaza war so that they do not influence the results.
Sanchez’s comments came ahead of a vote in the Spanish parliament on May 20 on a bill that would:
Spain should ban the supply of weapons and secondary equipment to Israel,
And prohibit the transit of such goods through Spanish territory to Israel.
The bill was proposed by several left-wing parties last year. The document states that Spain should not have trade relations with countries against which accusations of genocide or other serious crimes have been filed in international courts.
Sánchez declared when presenting the bill, “My government cannot trade with a country that is accused of genocide.”
