Ben Lowry: How heartening to see Germany stand by Israel over the Irish-led Eurovision boycott threat
It is good that Germany this week said it will pull out of the Eurovision song contest if Israel is banned.
Ireland, one of the most anti Israeli nations in Europe, has been leading the charge against Israel (regrettably backed by that gifted Ulsterman musician Phil Coulter), saying that it will pull out if the Jewish state is represented.
What a shameful moment that would be after the anti semitic would-be genocide of the Islamic extremists of Hamas almost two years ago, on October 7 2023. That day was a warning as to the hatred behind the chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’.
Now a generation of young people in wealthy countries like the UK and US have no understanding of the Middle East, and of how it is Israel that is the nation that shares their values.
By ‘their’ I mean the liberal, open, democratic values in which free speech and a free press are still enshrined (despite a cancel culture that threatens it) that those young students take for granted.
Israel is surrounded by hostile or semi hostile Islamic states that are all ultra traditional in matters such as women’s rights to a degree that such left-leaning students would deplore, even hate, if they were Christian nations.
Yet they wear their Palestinian flags and parade their ignorance of such contradictions and direct their ire at Israel.
• Ben Lowry @Benlowry2 is News Letter editor