How Much Effect Does BDS Have? Netta’s Eurovision Results Say None

How much does the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel drive the actions of people across Europe? The solid answer seems to be close to none. It turns out when you take a plebiscite poll of millions of people in 43 countries (technically 42 because we exclude Israel), not nearly enough people put politics and negativity high enough on a list of cares to change the result of a song and singing contest!

The Eurovision full results can be found on their website, a bit of number crunching and we get some great information.

Netta won for Israel because she smashed it out of the park in the phone voting. In the Jury vote by experts, Austria (+59) and Sweden (+41) were both ahead of Israel by considerable amounts but both of those dropped in the Televote. Germany was only 8 points behind Israel, as well, and Cyprus a little further back at 29 points behind.

In the Televote, Israel scored a massive 317 points vs second place Cyprus on 253. A gulf of 64 points. Even if Austria and Cyprus switched scores in the Televote, Israel would still have won. Austria (who really did have a technically excellent song), Germany and Sweden were completely wiped out by the Televote.

So here are the countries whose Juries and people gave a combined 24 or 22 points:

The huge news is that the people of 38 countries and the Juries of 34 countries out of 42 gave us votes.

In total the people of 4 countries gave Israel zero points: Denmark, Slovenia, Estonia and Montenegro.

However if you combine Jury votes and the Televote, only Estonia and Montenegro gave us nothing at all.

There are some interesting variances where the Televote was considerably better than the Jury vote and this is where we really won. In the days before the competition, Cyprus’s song came on strong in terms of YouTube views and general buzz, even grabbing the betting favourite status, but I think Netta had already won a huge amount more buzz before people woke up to Cyprus.

And antisemitism in eastern Europe? I’m seeing the people of Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Czech Rep, Germany and even Azerbaijan giving Netta very high marks. Here’s the list of countries whose people gave Israel 8 points or above. I don’t believe most people base their every decision on racist principles and this was no different: give them a decent song, an interesting performer and a great back story and people are blind to race, colour, religion and politics. What a nice thought.

Here’s the list of countries whose people gave Israel 8 points or above:

Israel doesn’t need to be loved, but it sure as heck feels nice to find out that we’re not hated enough to spoil a great party. As Netta Barzilai proudly declared on stage (probably to the annoyance of the organisers who didn’t want any mention of Israel Capital City), next time in Jerusalem!