Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them.

But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaster got kicked out for Russia doing bad things (fair enough) but Israel's was kept in despite their government doing even worse things.

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jeltz an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, the scandal is about different members being held to different standards. Why are Azerbaijan and Israel allowed to stay while Russia got kicked out? Especially since Azerbaijan and Israel both have manipulated the voting in addition to waging wars.

	▲	throw-the-towel 5 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Europe was created on the explicit premise of opposing Russia.
	▲	flohofwoe 38 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> ...while Russia got kicked out? For starters, neither Israel nor Azerbaijan threaten Europe with nuklear annihation on a nearly weekly basis.
	▲	mitxela 43 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Because Russia is an enemy of Europe while Israel is an ally.
	▲	vintermann an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah, Azerbaijan is another which is often forgotten. Honestly, it seems Eurovision is mostly interesting for countries that need PR help. I'd be happy to see the whole thing go, it's outlived what little purpose it had.

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mschuster91 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Simple, for one the ITU region assignment, there's a bunch of other countries in Africa and Asia that are in the European Broacasting Area and thus eligible to join the EBU.

The other thing more applies to other sports like soccer, most Arab countries (but especially Iran) will not accept having to work with Israel because it would require them to accept Israel as a legitimate country.