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Israeli Contest Entry Pushes Europe’s Buttons
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More in NewsJerusalem - Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest are protesting Israel’s decision to submit a song whose lyrics seem to touch on the raging international controversy over Iran’s nuclear program.
“It’s absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition,” said Kjell Ekholm, a Eurovision organizer, adding that contest officials would convene to discuss whether to disqualify the song, “Push the Button,” performed by hip-hop-cum-urban-pop group Teapacks.
The song speaks of “crazy leaders in the world who are trying to trick us” and “rockets flying and landing on me.” A line from the chorus becomes even more specific: “I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun, but nevertheless, he’s gonna push the button.”
In the face of the negative reaction among contest organizers, Israelis remained defiant. The Israel Broadcasting Authority, which selected the song last week, said it had submitted the lyrics to the European Broadcasting Union and encountered no problems.
Meanwhile, the band’s lead vocalist, Kobi Oz, argued that the song should be appreciated for capturing the Israeli national mood.
“The song has a line that talks about ‘several crazy leaders.’ … We didn’t mention names,” Oz told Ma’ariv. “The State of Israel has gone through enough so that it can laugh at terrorism. The Israelis chose the song because that is the best way: not to be afraid, but to laugh in their faces,” he said.
Many Israelis are convinced that their fortunes at Eurovision depend on the state of their rapprochement efforts with Middle East neighbors.
The landmark Israeli-Egyptian peace talks of 1978-79 coincided with two successive victories by the Jewish state at Eurovision. The third and last victory was in 1998, the height of optimism at the prospects of the Israeli-Palestinian interim peace talks.
Israel had additional help in the form of its singer that year, transsexual Dana International, whose vamping delighted liberal Europeans while stirring rancor among religious conservatives back home.
Even if “Push the Button” passes the political correctness test in Helsinki, it may be challenged on another front — originality.
Ma’ariv reported that the song contains elements that recall a song from the 1936 Charlie Chaplin film “Modern Times.”
But the newspaper quoted Teapacks members as saying it was a matter of inspired homage rather than plagiarism.
“There is a resemblance, but it is extremely small,” one unnamed musician said. “We’re talking about a half-note exactly. The Eurovision rules are clear, and there will be no legal problem with the song.”
Comments
Donna; Take your anti-semite crap elsewhere. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is a democracy. The rest are racist apartheid Islamic facist regimes that oppress women and non-Muslims. These countries violate human rights everyday. Arabs are the ones occupying Jewish land. There has never been a Palestinian country or people. Palestine is a myth created by the immigrant Arabs in Israel. Jews have been in Israel for thousands of years and the land belongs to them. Israel is surrounded by barbaric violent thugs whose goal is to destroy Israel. Israel has every right to defend themselves against these new Nazis. Hizzbollah started the war and most of those killed in Lebanon were terrorists not civlians. Iran is the world's rogue country. You should move there since you have so much in common with anti-Jewish terrorist hate-mongers.
To Kate;Yeah a democracy where you are an automatic citizen if you are jewish if you are not and when you leave israel you are stripped of your citizenship I hope USA becomes the type of democracy and makes mandatory a citizen to be a christian oh there will go your powerbase! Without fact-check You can spit your venom on any country religion or people but others cant say anything about israel or they will be labelled anti-semitic Israeli soldiers, settlers kill women children innocent bystanders in the name of self-defense the world should see the hypocrisy and justification of killing other human beings by people like you
ranjem; It's obvious you are an uneducated fool. Israel is a Jewish country but non-Jews have the freedom to practice their religion unlike the racist apartheid Muslim countries where non-Muslims have NO FREEDOM! The only settlers are the Arabs who are occupying Jewish land. They murder innocent Jewish children by blowing them up and beating them. They are child-killers and terrorists!
You seem to have some interesting readers of the Forward. I was just wondering why such obvious anti-semites as Donna and Ranjem were even reading the forward unless they are propagandists for some anti-semitic group.
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Given that Israel has the technology (i.e., the bomb) and the track record of violating international law and human rights conventions, the world is, justifiably, more afraid that Israel will "push the button." We now know that Olmert planned the invasion of Lebanon long before any Israeli soldiers were captured, resulting in the deaths of over a thousand Lebanese civilians and the destruction of their infrastructure. We also know of the devasting oppression of the Palestinians by an illegal and immoral Israeli occupation. If anyone is going to "push the button," it will be the one rogue state in the Middle East--Israel.