The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, currently underway in Vienna, Austria, has found itself at the center of fresh controversy around Israeli participation and voting integrity, prompting organizers to implement sweeping reforms to competition rules and issue a formal reprimand to Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
Tensions around Israeli voting practices first emerged following the 2024 contest, when Israel finished as the public vote winner despite earning only 60 points from the competition’s professional national juries, which score entries based on artistic and compositional merit. Roughly 83% of Israel’s total points came from public votes that year, a stark contrast to overall winner Austria, which drew just 41% of its score from public voting.
Independent media investigations later revealed that an Israeli government advertising agency had funded a coordinated online campaign that instructed social media users how to cast the maximum allowed 20 votes for the Israeli entry, a move that violated Eurovision guidelines around disproportionate state-backed promotion. While the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Eurovision’s governing body, found no conclusive evidence of actionable voting irregularities after the 2024 event, it moved quickly to overhaul voting procedures ahead of the 2025 contest.
Key reforms approved in November 2024 include cutting the maximum allowed number of votes per user in half to 10, banning disproportionate promotional campaigns led by third parties including national governments, and mandating that online voters submit verifiable credit card details to confirm votes originate from the voter’s claimed country of residence. The reforms also restored jury voting to semi-final rounds, a step taken after six national juries were caught colluding to trade votes at the 2022 Turin contest.
Despite these new guardrails, controversy has flared again this year. Earlier this month, Israeli contestant Noam Bettan—currently one of the favorites to win the grand final with his romantic ballad *Michelle*—released social media videos instructing fans to “vote 10 times for Israel”, a move that directly violated the competition’s spirit and promotional rules. In response, the EBU issued a formal warning to Kan and ordered the offending posts be removed immediately.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, current Eurovision Contest Director Martin Green, who took on the role in 2024 after leading creative and ceremonial teams for the 2012 London Olympics and 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, acknowledged that concerns over unfair promotion were valid. “I agree that some of the promotion by some of the broadcasters was a little disproportionate,” he told the BBC, adding that organizers are monitoring all voting patterns “very, very carefully” this year to head off any potential misconduct.
Green emphasized that the EBU prefers to resolve violations through dialogue rather than immediate harsh sanctions, when asked whether Israel faced potential disqualification for further breaches. “We’re a long way from any of that. If there is a problem, we start a conversation and we try and resolve it amicably, without reaching for sanctions,” he explained. “We hope, in a way, that you teach the world that you can solve [conflict] by being collegiate right now.”
On Tuesday, Israel secured one of the 10 grand final spots from the first semi-final, though semi-final voting breakdowns will not be released publicly until after the final concludes to avoid biasing voters. Beyond voting rules, Green’s tenure has also been marked by widespread protests over Israel’s continued participation, with many contestants, fans and activists objecting to the country’s military offensive in Gaza. Last November, after a proposal to suspend Israel from the contest failed to pass, five national broadcasters—including those from Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, all vocal critics of Israeli military policy—announced they would boycott the 2026 contest.
Speaking ahead of this year’s first semi-final, Green expressed openness to reconciliation with the boycotting broadcasters. “We’ve got 35 members of our family here, and that’s enough to have a big party. But, you know, five [are absent] and we miss them,” he said. “When this show is over, I know we’ll pick up the dialogue and we’ll see what comes.”
Despite ongoing tensions, Green said he has full confidence in the integrity of the newly revised voting system. “We are very consistent. We have one of the best voting systems for the public in the world. It is fair, it is true, it is secure. People can try and do what they like. They’re not going to [influence] anything,” he added.