More than 1,400 Finnish artists sign a petition urging a ban on Israel from the Eurovision over war crimes in Gaza

Over 1,400 Finnish music industry professionals have signed a petition urging a ban on Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest for what they describe as war crimes in Gaza.

The petition further stated that if Israel is not to be excluded from the competition, they want Finnish public broadcaster Yle to withdraw Finland's entry from the competition.

Yle has said it is monitoring the position of the European Broadcasting Union, known as the  EBU, who organise the contest.

Last month, Icelandic musicians also made similar demands to their national broadcaster Rúv.

Signatories of the Finnish artist's petition include Eurovision alum Olavi Uusivirta, Paleface and Axel Ehnström, who represented the country in the 2011 contest.

The pair accused Yle of double standards, saying the broadcaster was among the first to demand a ban on Russia from the 2022 contest, "and we expect the same active defending of values from Yle now as well".

A day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Yle representative Ville Vilén said Moscow's attack was "contrary to all the values that Yle and other European broadcasters represent".

The EBU soon after banned Russia from participating.

Mr Vilén has now said the situation in Israel and Gaza was "not quite the same".

Continuing, the Yle representative tol Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat last month: "As gruesome as it is, it is not a war of inter-state aggression like between Russia and Ukraine,".

Nevertheless, the Finnish broadcasting service plans to meet the petition's authors.

Broadcasters in Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands all fielded questions about Israel’s participation in Eurovision 2024 in late 2023 too — and all deferred to the European Broadcasting Union, reminding those asking that the broadcasting body makes decisions regarding participation.

In December the EBU released a statement saying that Eurovision was "for broadcasters - not for governments" and Israel had taken part for 50 years.

It said member organisations had agreed that Israel's public broadcaster Kan "complies with all competition rules" and insisted the contest was a "non-political event".

At this time, RTÉ received northwards of 500 emails from the general public calling on the broadcaster to boycott Eurovision 2024 in late 2024.

The email template read: "At a minimum, our participation shows an indifference towards the ongoing human rights abuses, alleged breaches of international law and attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing currently being conducted by the Israeli government in Palestine"

A spokesperson for RTÉ said that: “RTÉ has always approached the event in the spirit in which it was founded – which is a non-political contest designed to unite audiences and bring people together through a shared love of music and entertainment.

The spokesperson also highlighted that no other national broadcasters were planning on boycotting the 2024 Eurovision song contest: "RTÉ is not aware of any participating Public Service Broadcaster who is planning to boycott the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.”

This year's Eurovision will take place in the Swedish city of Malmö, with Ireland's hopeful Eurovision representatives competing on the Late Late Show on January the 29th. The list of artists hoping to represent Ireland at the song contest include Erica Cody, AILSHA, jyellowl and Toshín.

The war in Gaza kicked off last year after Hamas launched a terrorist attack on the Israeli Supernova Music festival on October 7th.

Since then, the violence has escalated exponentially, with the most recent death toll estimates from Al Jazeera standing at 23,357 people have been killed and more than 59,410 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 alone. While the revised death toll in Israel from the October 7 attack stands at 1,139.