The body that organizes the Eurovision Song Contest, the most important and followed music contest at European level, he will admit at this year’s competition the song presented by Israel, around which a case had developed due to its explicit references to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. The song was called October rainin Italian October rainand last week it was rejected by the organizers for violating the rules on political neutrality of Eurovision: the text in fact seemed to allude to the war against Hamas, the radical Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, and the title itself seemed to be a reference to the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory on 7 October 2023, which gave rise to the ongoing war.
The admitted song has the same melody as October rain but it has a new text and title: it will be called Hurricanein Italian Hurricane, while the new text will be published on Sunday. Israel’s public television network initially said that the text would not be changed, but then Israeli President Isaac Herzog called on the television network to make the “necessary changes” so that Israel could participate in the competition.
The one linked to this song is not the only controversy regarding Israel’s participation in this year’s Eurovision. Even before the debate on October Rain hundreds of musicians from several countries, including Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, had signed petitions asking the organizers not to admit Israel to Eurovision, due to the war in which the Israeli army besieged and invaded the Gaza Strip by land .