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Whoever thought the shiny, cheesy Eurovision Song Contest could become the site of radical protest? The Israeli singer Noa, who interests me less for her droopy ballads than because she shares my daughter's name—has decided to use that stage to make a diplomatic point. For years she has collaborated with an Israeli Arab singer, Mira Awad. Now she is insisting Awad share the stage with her in representing Israel, and everyone is up in arms. The right, expectedly. But even the left is now on her case, complaining that she's putting a shiny face on the war in Gaza. What's impressive about Noa's request is the smallness of it. This is the musical equivalent of Hillary's recent creative diplomacy in China—a tiny act of connection that makes its point gently. What's even more impressive is that it comes at a time when the left in Israel has long given up and grown entirely cynical about the possibility of co-existence. So let's all support Noa by joining hands and singing ... Abba?
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Imagine if you took American Idol, added shinier clothes, cheesier production values, slighter pop songs (I know, I know how could it be possible!), and then topped it all off with an oversized helping of nationalism. The result would be the extremely trivial, highly political, tremendously campy annual Eurovision Song Contest, in which musical acts from various European nations, plus the likes of Israel, Turkey, and Russia, slap on headsets and some discarded Backstreet Boys duds and vie for simultaneously meaningful and meaningless cultural bragging rights.
This year's contest, which will take place in Moscow, goes down in May, but participating nations are in the midst of choosing their representatives now. Israel's selection, an Arab and Israeli duo that were picked the day after the Gaza war began, has already generated some controversy. The Times reported over the weekend that Georgia, on the heels of August's war with Russia, has mischievously selected "We Don't Wanna Put In"—as in Vladimir Putin—as their Eurovision entry. Should the song make it to the finals (voters are allowed to vote for any song but their own country's), it would, theoretically, be broadcast on Russia's state-owned Channel One—where it will be the most critical item to air on Putin in recent memory. Not bad rabble-rousing for a lousy pop song.
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