Israeli broadcaster selects Eurovision song, to be revealed next month

Israel was cleared to compete in Eurovision after other broadcasters abandoned a proposal to bar its participation, following reforms intended to enhance the event’s “transparency and neutrality.”

By JNS

Israeli Eurovision Song Festival contestant Noam Bettan will sing a song written by Nadav Aharoni, Tslil Klifi and Yuval Raphael, the country’s 2025 representative and a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

Israel’s Kan public broadcaster announced over the weekend that it had selected the song, which is set to be revealed to the public in March.

An expert committee tapped by Kan to select this year’s song narrowed some 200 submissions down to four potential winners, Kan explained.

Bettan recorded all four songs and the committee picked a winner.

Kan noted that the song will be in “a slightly different style” than Israel’s Eurovision entries over from 2024 and 2025, which were ballads. The song contains Hebrew, French and English lyrics, like 2025’s ballad.

Israel’s submission will now be sent for consideration to the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the annual musical extravaganza.

The son of French immigrant parents, Bettan, 27, from the central city of Ra’anana, was nominated as Israel’s contestant after winning the finale of the “HaKokhav HaBa” (“The Next Star”) TV competition in January.

Bettan began his musical career during his compulsory Israel Defense Forces military service and first gained national attention in 2018 after coming in third in the musical reality TV competition “Aviv or Eyal.”

In 2024, Bettan released “Pokeach Einayim,” based on lyrics by IDF Staff Sgt. Yaron Oree Shay, a soldier from the Nahal Brigade who was killed fighting Palestinian terrorists during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7.

Israel was cleared to compete in Eurovision after other broadcasters abandoned a proposal to bar its participation, following reforms intended to enhance the event’s “transparency and neutrality.”

The decision was made during a Dec. 4 gathering held at the European Broadcasting Union’s Geneva headquarters to consider rules aimed at reducing “influence” over voting by governments and third parties.

The public broadcasters of Spain, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands have already announced that their countries would skip the musical event in protest of the EBU’s decision to allow Israel to participate.