International boycotts, Iranian-Israeli back channels, snubs, accusations and flaming Irish anger.

I’m not talking about the war in the Middle East; I’m talking about Eurovision.

The annual singing competition that took place last weekend in Vienna, Austria, is something like the United Nations, if the delegates were wearing feathers.

Or the Olympics, if the competitors were judged by their country of origin and not their athletic skill.

Americans, if they’re aware of it at all, tend to yawn at this annual parade of subpar musical numbers, but in truth the music is just a distraction.

Eurovision is a fascinating geopolitical battlefield, a singular world stage where rabid nationalism meets unapologetic kitsch.

Each participating country — 35 this year — submits an original song, performed by a local singer or band.

The real show begins when the voting starts, and countries, through panels of judges as well as fans voting from home, get to unleash their lethal arsenal of soft power on one another.

And unleash they do: Scandinavian countries all vote for each other, as do the Balkans.

Ukraine won in a landslide in 2022, amid international sympathy after Russia’s invasion.

And one small country has repeatedly found itself at the center of the competition’s drama: Israel.

Over the last three years, spurred by certain news outlets and social-media influencers, crowds of protesters have shown up at Eurovision to heckle Israel’s musical representative.

Its artists have been snubbed by fellow performers, and countries have even dropped out of the competition altogether to protest their presence.

Israeli singers reportedly rehearse to a soundtrack of boos and jeers, to simulate what they’ll inevitably experience onstage.

But scratch the glitter, and a brighter picture emerges.

Amid all the controversy — and despite low points from judges’ panels (who wants to deal with all those mean Instagram comments?) — Israel has been reeling in record numbers of audience votes.

In 2025, when judges ranked Israel’s entry in 14th place, the audience picked it overwhelmingly as their favorite, launching it into the No. 2 spot overall.

This year brought a similar result: The audience vote took Israel from eighth place in the judges’ estimation to second in the final tally.

Anti-Israel critics claimed the public support was the result of a sophisticated campaign by those crafty Zionists, but voters in countries like Albania, Finland and Portugal — not exactly known for their thriving Jewish communities — each awarded Israel the majority of their points.

And anyone paying attention to the fans, not to the activists, could have seen the results coming.

Hundreds of YouTube reaction videos to Noam Bettan’s performance said nothing of Gaza or genocide, just kudos for his beautiful voice, his longing lyrics and the staging of his banger, “Michelle.”

Iranians in the diaspora campaigned on Bettan’s behalf, and social-media viewing numbers for “Michelle” broke records.

Were the good people of Switzerland paying homage to Theodore Herzl when they boosted Bettan’s song?

Was the British vote the result of some nefarious Mossad mind control?

Or could it just be that people love a good pop song when they hear one, and are sick and tired of their media and elites telling them who to hate?

In the grand scheme of international war and diplomacy, Eurovision is a fluffy bit of entertainment — but to Israelis, it’s a rare opportunity to take the world’s temperature.

For us Eurovision is a chance to be a normal country like any other, one where we can go out to bars without calculating where the nearest bomb shelter is and listen to a favorite song without being interrupted by a missile-attack alert.

It’s a reminder that music is louder than catcalls, and that our young men can take as much pride in their dance moves as in their combat experience.

The hatred from so much of the global community has hurt us, but we still want to have a seat at the table.

I watched the Eurovision finals at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen, holding a small Israeli flag that I waved at first a bit hesitantly, and then proudly.

People noticed — and one after the other came up to me to say how much they loved my country’s entry, including one Swedish-Syrian woman who told me her whole family voted for Israel.

If you ignore the noise and just listen to the music, you’ll find a beautiful tune underneath the boos and the scorn.

You don’t even need to rehearse.

Yael Bar tur is an Israeli living in New York and author of “Everyone on the Internet Hates You” on Substack. X: @yaelbt.