Eurovision: The left is losing their last shred of dignity

I subscribe to the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s weekly newsletters which detail news stories of antisemitism across the world. In a recent update, they provided highlights from their in-depth study with the Antisemitism Research Centre to showcase the ever growing incidents of Jew hate that we face. The study showed that during one week of online monitoring, 8.4% of antisemitism came from the far right, 13.7% came from Islamist extremists and 72.5% came from the far left. 

Out of those three groups, only one prides themselves on being forward thinking, progressive and anti-hate; spoiler alert, it is not the far right or Islamist extremists. 

Jewish people have been calling out the far left for a long time, with many of us experiencing antisemitism from our so-called progressive peers in liberal circles for years, and there has never been a clearer indication of the hypocrisy and obsession with Jew hate on the left than in the world of music this month.

A few weeks ago, professional antisemite Kanye West released a song titled, ‘Heil Hitler’ in which he denies the Holocaust, glorifies Hitler and samples Nazi speeches. Now I’m not chronically online but I have a general idea of what people are saying and how they react to controversy. What I did not see was anyone of note condemning the song or the artist. I didn’t see any ‘video essays’ or ‘thought pieces’ on how we need to stand up against Kanye’s antisemitism and remove him and his influence from public platforms. The only reactions I saw were from fellow Jews who, like me, were looking around to find any sensible person to see what we were seeing and respond appropriately, or at all. 

Then something interesting happened, right on cue Kanye tweeted ‘Free Gaza’. Before I respond to this tweet, I need to take you back to November 2023 when around 100,000 people joined the March Against Antisemitism in solidarity with the Jewish community in the UK. The march was attended by several high profile figures and unfortunately Tommy Robinson made it known that he was going to attend ‘in solidarity’ with the Jewish community. We are not stupid, we are fully aware that Tommy Robinson is a hateful man who has no solidarity with Jews and the organisers of the march made it clear that Tommy Robinson was not welcome. Cut back to Kanye, who after releasing his song ‘Heil Hitler’ tweets ‘Free Gaza’, and receives hundreds of thousands of likes and is heaped with praise from so called progressive pro-Palestinian activists. No one seemed to connect the dots and think that maybe Kanye isn’t the best person to represent the Palestinian cause. No one thought that a self-declared Nazi was a bit of a problematic leader for them. Now why could that be, it’s a real head scratcher I know…

The other big event for Jews in music this month was Eurovision. Everyone is aware of the controversy surrounding Eurovision so I don’t need to go into details other than the fact that the Israeli representative, Yuval Raphael, survived the Hamas October 7th terrorist massacre, something entirely omitted from the European Broadcasting Union’s event. After surviving brutal terrorism, Yuval wasn’t praised for her heroism or bravery for being able to stand on the world stage and represent her country. Instead, she has been constantly abused by the far left who use her as a punching bag for the Israeli government. In the eyes of the left, Yuval is wholly to blame for the actions of the Israeli government and her being a terrorist attack survivor is completely insignificant and actually an entirely inconvenient thing for them to recognise. During her performance, two ‘activists’ tried to throw red paint on her but were thankfully stopped by security. If your idea of activism is throwing red paint to resemble blood at someone who had to hide under dead bodies for 8 hours whilst terrorists raped, murdered and kidnapped hundreds of people, then you have completely lost all sense of morality and integrity for your cause. 

The sheer amount of conversation surrounding Israel at Eurovision has reached fever pitch levels and it needs to be called out for what it is. The left spend all their time and energy attacking Yuval and putting her in danger as she represents her country in a singing contest whilst they remain completely silent at Kanye’s ‘Heil Hitler’ song and his subsequent hate tweets.

There could not be a clearer indication of the left’s hatred of Jewish people, disguised as activism and humanitarianism. They do not care about deplatforming hate speech, they do not care about creating safe spaces for all, they only care about hating Jews and hating Israel. Their reaction, or lack of, to these two events has to open your eyes to the total loss of integrity and moral guidance within the far left. 

As ever, your silence makes you complicit. I am begging you, call out hate when you see it. Call out antisemitism in the far left. Just because someone claims to be ‘progressive’ that does not give them a free pass to hate Jews in the name of being ‘pro-Palestinian’. 72.5% of antisemitic incidents coming from the far left needs to be a wakeup call. We know where we stand with the far right and Islamist extremists, they don’t hide their hatred for us but the left stand on their hypocritical morality podiums whilst being the landslide culprits of antisemitism and it needs to be recognised and stopped.

If you want to align yourself with moral values then you must call out hate on the far left with the same energy as you would with the far right. Hate is hate is hate.