While relatively few Americans have heard of, let alone paid attention to, the annual Eurovision song contest, for Europeans, as well as many Middle Easterners, it is a major annual event—a sort of international musical Super Bowl. Since Israel’s contestant won the 2018 competition, this year’s, which began yesterday, is taking place in Tel Aviv. Shayna Weiss explains why hosting the event is a matter of national pride to Israelis:

Cynics criticize the festival as a cheesy competition with bad music and outrageous costumes and mock its naïve sentimentality. But not taking Eurovision seriously or ignoring it altogether means ignoring the power of cultural politics and performance. Eurovision is a deeply political activity disguised as a campy contest that hopes to transcend those very politics. For Israel, being part of Eurovision is a potent way of asserting its identity as a member of the community of nations. It’s a reflection of the classic Zionist idea of normalization, of creating a Jewish country that is a country like any other. Winning Eurovision and hosting Eurovision send the message that Israel is important in the cultural realm, that it is on the map for something other than the conflict with the Palestinians.

The contest offers an opportunity for Israel to advertise to the world the kind of country it wants to be, a musical message to be broadcast in three minutes or less. As the host country, Israel also has the opportunity to convince viewers to visit and spend their tourist dollars there—or at the very least to have a slightly more favorable view of the country. . . .

Like any Eurovision host city, Tel Aviv will advertise an idealized version of itself. [Unsurprisingly], various BDS efforts pushed contestants not to participate this year. Despite the pressure, no countries dropped out, though the Icelandic techno band Hatari has been vocal in its opposition to Israel. In an interview, the band indicated that being kicked out for its criticism of Israel would be the best outcome, but if it can adhere to the rules and remain apolitical on stage, it has a chance of winning. . . .

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.