Israeli Eurovision entry sparks debate

Eurovision wouldn’t be Eurovision without a good argument. Last year, Iceland provided the comic relief with a song that included the F word. This time, some people are questioning if Israel is not pushing the limit of humour a little with a topical comedy track called “Push the Button”… Who exactly should be pushing the button? Will the song lyrics cause Israel to be disqualified this year?

“Push the Button” is a jokey reference to the current atmosphere in Israel, which feels threatened by its neighbours, and Iran in particular.

The world is full of terror
If someone makes an error
He’s gonna blow us up to biddy biddy kingdom come
There are some crazy rulers they hide and try to fool us
With demonic, technologic willingness to harm….

(Translation from Hebrew:)
Messages are exploding above me
missiles flying over me and falling on me…
Between a rocket and a weapon
between a kidnapped person and opportunism…
nothing is what everybody does.

“Laughing at monsters”

Singer Kobi Oz of the group Teapacks told Ynet.co.il, “Some may think it refers to Israeli leaders, some may think it talks about other countries’ leaders. We are not taking sides. The message we wish to convey is that all we want is to live, smell the flowers bloom and have fun. Last year all of Europe had a laugh on horror movies monsters from Finland. This year we give the opportunity to laugh on the living monsters among us”.

Sounds reasonable enough. But the Eurovision rules specifically forbid political lyrics, speeches or gestures. The lyrics will be reviewed by the Eurovision organisation, with disqualification as a possible outcome (although it’s more likely they would be asked to re-record the song if they feel it breaks their rules).

This is not the first time Israel has caused ripples at the Eurovision. Anyone remember the transvestite Dana International?