Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Massive Attack, Sigur Rós, Mogwai and more sign open letter asking the European Broadcasting Union to ban Israel from participating in Eurovision 2026

Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Roger Waters, Paul Weller, Massive Attack, Mogwai, Kneecap, Dry Cleaning and more have signed an open letter to the European Broadcasting Union asking for Israel to be banned from participating in this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

The No Music For Genocide campaign is calling for artists, broadcasters, screening party organisers, crews and fans to boycott the competition following the EBU's decision to let Israel compete, despite the on-going genocide in Gaza, where 784 deaths and 2,214 injuries have been reported since the October 10 'ceasefire' came into effect.

The world's leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. A resolution passed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) states that Israel's conduct meets the legal definition as laid out in the UN convention on genocide.

Israel's military campaign, a response to the October 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli soil that saw around 1,200 people killed and 251 people taken hostage, has resulted in the death of over 72,549 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel has denied any genocidal intent.

The conflict has been on-going for decades, with official UN figures for the 15 years before the 2023 escalation recording 7277 Palestinian deaths and 162,121 Palestinian injuries in occupied Palestinian territory and Israel since 2008, and 368 Israeli deaths and 6,670 Israeli injuries during the same time span in the region.

This May marks the third consecutive year Israel will appear at Eurovision - the world's largest music event, drawing 166 million viewers last year, surpassing the Super Bowl and Grammys combined - while Russia remains banned. In 2022, the EBU said that Russia's presence would "bring the competition into disrepute". The new open letter asks why the same standard has not been applied to Israel.

It states: "We refuse to be silent when Israel’s genocidal violence soundtracks and silences Palestinian lives. When children in Israeli prisons endure beatings for humming a tune. When all that’s left of nearly every stage, studio, bookshop and university in Gaza is piles of rubble, under which slaughtered bodies still await recovery and proper burial.

As artists, we recognise our collective agency – and the power of refusal. We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be complicit. We call on others in our industry to join us. And we stand in solidarity with all principled efforts to end complicity in every industry."

Other artists who have signed the letter include IDLES, Primal Scream, Sigur Rós, Young Fathers, Black Country New Road, Nadine Shah, Ólafur Arnalds and David Holmes.

Broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia and the Netherlands are boycotting this year's event.

Kneecap say, "Russia was banned from Eurovision in 2022. Israel has been murdering Palestinians for decades and is now committing genocide - and for the third year running, they're welcomed back onto the stage. That's not neutrality. That's a choice. We've paid a price for speaking out - lost gigs, court cases, visa bans - and we'd do it all again tomorrow. Silence is complicity. We stand with No Music for Genocide and every artist, fan and broadcaster who refuses to let the world's biggest music event be used to whitewash genocide."