Auf, the youth movement affiliated with Jagland's Labor Party, recently began a campaign on its website to bar Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest. Entitled "Give Israel the goodbye vote," the campaign calls on youth across Europe to call in votes in favor of Israel hosting the Eurosong 2000 song contest during the Eurovision contest in Copenhagen on Saturday, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The youth movement's president, Eva Kristen Hansen, wrote on the website that allowing Israel to host the song contest would put the country in the international spotlight.
Auf would then lead a lobbying campaign using its international network of social-democratic youth organizations to persuade the European Broadcasting Union to ban Israel from the contest because of its policies toward the Palestinians.
"This is a soft campaign against a hard state," Hansen wrote, cited by the paper. "To push Israeli leaders towards a just peace, ordinary Israelis must feel a stronger dissatisfaction with the current situation of 'peace' based on force and suppression.”
"Being locked out from the European TV-family’s annual show, a show of disputed quality but huge popularity, may contribute to a general dissatisfaction of that kind.
"We must keep in mind that Eurosong has been one out of very few arenas where Israel has been able to promote itself internationally in a positive way," Hansen wrote, cited in the paper.
The newspaper said that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres intends to protest against the Norwegian Labor Party youth movement's anti-Israel Eurovision song campaign in his meeting today with Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland.
The Israeli song for ESC 2001 is called "Ein Davar", performed by Tal Sondak. The title is translated as "Never Mind" – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
