Despite calls for an international boycott, SBS has maintained that it will broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, which is to be held in Israel next year.
The contest is set to be hosted in Tel Aviv – 70 kilometres from the Gaza border, where the Israeli military murdered more than 200 protesters this year. The event was planned for occupied East Jerusalem, where Israel has made an aggressive push to assert a territorial claim over the city. The retreat to Tel Aviv was the first significant victory for the boycott campaign.
The Australian wing of the international boycott, led by BDS Australia, has demanded that SBS not participate in “artwashing” Israeli apartheid.
Staff at Irish broadcaster RTE have won the right not to work on its coverage of the contest, another victory for the boycott and a good precedent for the campaign here in Australia.
BDS Australia launched the boycott in October, with more than a thousand responses to a petition directed at SBS management. But SBS responded by threatening BDS Australia with legal action for using the SBS logo in its online campaign and leaflet.
Read the report by by Hersha Kadkol, Paulie Bover in Red Flag.