Israel and favorite Finland advance to the Eurovision final as 5
countries are sent home
[May 13, 2026]
By JILL LAWLESS and PHILIPP JENNE
VIENNA (AP) — Ten countries including favorite Finland and contentious
competitor Israel won places Tuesday in the Eurovision Song Contest
final, while five nations were sent home after the first day of
competition in the pop music extravaganza.
Host city Vienna has been bedecked in hearts and the contest’s “United
by Music” motto for a week in which singers and bands from 35 countries
will compete onstage for the continent’s musical crown. But divisions
are clouding the contest’s 70th anniversary edition, with five countries
— Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland — boycotting to
protest Israel’s inclusion.
Despite the absentee nations, thousands of ebullient fans from across
Europe and beyond packed the Wiener Stadthalle arena for the first
semifinal. Some had flags painted on their faces or clothes in national
colors, others wore sequins and spangles for a contest that celebrates
the kitschy, infectious power of pop.
Security is tight across the city, with police from across Austria
deployed in the capital, and support from forces in neighboring Germany.
Awareness of risk is high after a 21-year-old Austrian man accused of
pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group pleaded guilty to
plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.
Israel through to the Eurovision final
Acts from 15 countries performed their 3-minute songs onstage – often
with eye-catching choreography and pyrotechnics – in a bid for votes
from juries in participating nations and viewers around the world.
Israeli singer Noam Bettan was met with shouts of protests amid the
cheers in the auditorium when he performed the rock ballad “Michelle,”
but was one of 10 acts voted into Saturday's final.
Finland, the favorite on betting markets, made the cut with “Liekinheitin,”
or “Flamethrower,” a mashup of pop singer Pete Parkkonen’s anguished
vocals and violinist Linda Lampenius’ fiery fiddling.
Joining them in the final are Greece’s Akylas with party-rap track “Ferto,"
or "Bring It”; Serbian goth metal band Lavina with “Kraj Mene”; Moldovan
folk-rapper Satoshi with “Viva, Moldova!”; and “Andromeda” by Croatian
female ensemble Lelek.
Soulful Polish singer Alicja, Lithuanian performer Lion Ceccah, Swedish
singer Felicia and Belgium’s Essyla also made the final. Estonia,
Georgia, Montenegro, Portugal and San Marino were eliminated — despite a
guest appearance by 1980s icon Boy George on singer Senhit's San Marino
song, “Superstar.”
Ten more finalists will be chosen in a second semifinal Thursday. The
U.K., France, Germany and Italy automatically qualify for the final
because they are among the contest’s biggest funders. Austria, last
year’s winner, gets a place in the final as host country.
Protesters urge artists to withdraw
Long a forum for good-natured — and sometimes more pointed — national
rivalries, Eurovision has found it hard to separate pop and politics in
recent years. Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full-scale invasion
of Ukraine.
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Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen from Finland perform the song "Liekinheitin"
during the first semifinal of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in
Vienna, Austria, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
 The 2024 contest in Malmo, Sweden,
and last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, saw pro-Palestinian
protests that called for Israel to be expelled over the conduct of
its war against Hamas in Gaza and allegations it ran a rule-breaking
marketing campaign to get votes for its contestant.
The European Broadcasting Union, which runs Eurovision, has
toughened voting rules in response to the vote-rigging allegations,
halving the number of votes per person to 10 and tightening
safeguards against “suspicious or coordinated voting activity.”
But the EBU declined to kick Israel out, spurring five countries to
announce in December that they would not participate this year.
Several pro-Palestinian demonstrations are planned during Eurovision
week, including a musical event dubbed No Stage for Genocide. Its
backers urged Eurovision performers to pull out of the competition.
“I think it is a moral obligation for each and every artist to take
action and step away from the competition,” said Congolese-Austrian
activist Patrick Bongola.
Israel strongly denies committing genocide in Gaza. Demonstrations
in support of the country’s participation are also planned this week
in Vienna.
The five-country boycott is a revenue and viewership blow to an
event that organizers say was watched by 166 million people around
the world last year. Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania have returned
after skipping the event for artistic or financial reasons in recent
years, but the number of participants, at 35, is still the lowest
since 2003.
Jonathan Hendrickx, a media researcher at the University of
Copenhagen, said any more boycotts will stress the structure of the
contest and raise doubts about its future.
“They really are at their limits now, in terms of what they can
handle with the current format,” Hendrickx said.
Dean Vuletic, the author of “Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song
Contest,” is confident Eurovision can weather the latest storms.
“If you look at the history of Eurovision, it’s gone through so many
crises, so many political challenges, so many geopolitical changes
in Europe, and it’s always managed to survive,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this
report.
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