As Eurovision nears its détente, Vienna’s divisions over the contest are on full display — especially in the cultural heart of the city, Maria-Theresien-Platz, where different political factions held opposing demonstrations over the past two days. 

On Thursday a smattering of Israel supporters gathered at the Platz, named for an empress who once ruled the Habsburg Empire and is considered among the most intensely antisemitic monarchs of her era.

The event, marketed as a Eurovision Flashmob, was not very mob-like. Participants wore shirts that read Mazel Lov, held hands and sang Hava Nagila. Some wrapped themselves in Iranian flags that date back to before the 1979 revolution, and as a soft drizzle descended, a band played jazz.

But still, I could sense a frisson of tension, continuing the charged atmosphere from earlier in the week. A few of the heavyset older men in the crowd either belonged to secret service or just really liked wearing bluetooth headsets while looking in all directions every few seconds. Police vans idled nearby.

Osnot Slomovitz, a longtime Vienna resident who was born in Israel, told me she’d come to support Noam Bettan, Israel’s contestant this year, whom she’d seen perform live. “It was amazing,” she said. “The song is so good.” Bettan and Israel will compete against 24 other finalists Saturday; Israel is considered by oddsmakers as the fifth-most likely to win the top prize.

Asked if she wanted to discuss the politics of Eurovision, Slomovitz replied that it was too complicated. “I’m raising my kids here and we try to live in peace and quiet,” she said. “We have a lot of security in our area — which is sad, actually, but this is how we have to live.” The competition pressed on this year with Israel but without five boycotting nations and a host of sponsors who had also pulled out.

Nearby, a woman wearing a keffiyah strewn with stars of David was standing beside two well-coiffed men in matching olive green jackets; their names were Amit Cotler and Yaniv Dornbush, and both were covering Eurovision for Israeli publications.

Cotler, who’s been writing about Eurovision since 2018 and works as a presenter on Channel 13 News in Israel, said security for Israeli contestants is so strict that historically even the directors of the telecast don’t know all of the protocols. This year, Shin Bet, Mossad and elite Austrian units are all guarding the contestant, according to reports.

Cotler pointed to a procession of vans with tinted windows winding their way around what looked like Westbahnstrasse, which borders the stadium where Eurovision is taking place, led by multiple police escorts. Noam, he said, was in one of them.

Still, Cotler says Vienna has felt much more relaxed than the past two Eurovisions he covered in Basel and Malmö. “Last year, there wasn’t a single day in which someone on our team didn’t break down and cry,” he says. “That’s how hostile the reception was.”

In the 2026 press barracks, the Israeli press team is sharing tables with German and Greek correspondents. “The Greek journalists like us,” Cotler says. “One of them was wearing a hostage pin last year, so we started sitting next to them.”

That said, neither journalist is particularly optimistic about Israel’s future in the competition. “If we win, it’s the end of Eurovision, I think,” Dornbush said. “It’s going to be complicated,” Cotler interrupted him.


***

The next day, a different crowd had descended upon Maria-Theresien-Platz. A group called “Palestina Solidaritat” was hosting an alternative “song protest,” timed to Nakba Day, in which Palestinians mourn the loss of their land after the 1948 war that established the modern state of Israel.

Flyers for the event had been ubiquitous around Vienna over the past month, featuring a microphone drenched in stage blood, the Eurovision logo set aflame.

More than a hundred demonstrators showed up to the event, which was co-sponsored by former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters. Many wore keffiyahs and watermelon earrings and waved Palestinian flags. The protestors had also strung banners along the famous hedges that line Vienna’s renowned natural history museum.

One woman held aloft a sign reading “I hate a neutral-ass bitch,” referencing — I presume — the European Central Broadcasting Union, whose founding bylaws pledging neutrality feel passé to many in 2026. (A few days earlier, Amnesty International had called Israel’s participation in Eurovision a “betrayal of humanity.”)

On stage, a self-described Pan-Africanist, artist and educator named Topoké helped lead the proceedings. “Silence is violence,” he told the crowd. “So it’s great that you’re here, and you need to be much, much louder so the people in the Museum Quarter can hear us,” he added, referencing the cafe set up for Israeli fans of Eurovision. Notably, the Israeli fan cafe had only materialized after the entire gamut of Vienna’s most famous coffeeshops balked at the prospect of hosting Israeli fans; recently, it was defaced. 

Beside him, a singer named Nina Maleika explained the importance of countering the Eurovision “propaganda show” with a “much more beautiful musical protest.”

“The settlers can continue their ways with impunity, and yet the apartheid terror state is still invited to participate in the Eurovision,” she said. “A boycott of Israel is definitely necessary today, including in the arts.”

***

Back at the press barracks, each table was vaguely organized by nationality inside a convention space decked with pink and purple hearts. It felt as cliquey as high school, press badges identifying not only where you’re from but the prestige of your publication, demarcating your station within the press pool caste system.

That said, the semi-final rehearsal I’m taken to is jaw-dropping in technical terms. The first thing I notice is how gracefully the stage lights twirl — “like ballet dancers” I write in my notes — and the way the stairs glow at a breathy interval suggesting sentience.

The cameras, too, glide silently, with the precision of surgical robots.

Even more impressive are the stagehands, who are able to transform the sets between acts in just 35 seconds — giving me hope for humanity in our valiant struggle against AI. Beyond the 166 million worldwide viewers, it’s obvious why being on this stage means so much to so many. 

That night, I call a friend of a friend — an Austrian researcher and mega Eurovision fan — to discuss the importance of the event and tomorrow’s potentially bigger protest on a main arterial leading to the stadium.

She says she’s going to both the protest and the concert.

“I’m so split,” she said. “I understand why people don’t want to watch Eurovision this year, but I also don’t think either side is helped by me not watching it. Basically, I don’t think punishing the whole country [of Israel] for Netanyahu’s politics is fair.”

She says she cringed last year when Yuval Raphael — who’d survived the October 7th attack by playing dead under the bodies of murdered friends — was booed by the audience. “I didn’t think that was right,” she says. 

“One of the reasons why I love Eurovision is because it’s historically been, in a way, naive,” she continues. “It’s like this ideal world where you can pretend, for one evening, that everything is fine. You can imagine a future in which all countries can compete against each other with ridiculous sets and costumes and fire and wind effects.” 

“But,” she adds. “I also understand why some people find it impossible to enjoy, especially this year.”