Latest news with #YuvalRaphael
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The BBC's biased Israel reporting is fuelling anti-Semitism
I was in southern Israel last September, close to the border with Gaza, researching an article on the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacres. Our driver was taking us along Route 232, now known as the 'Road of Death' since so many people were murdered there. A line of pensioners waiting patiently for a bus were machine-gunned, I was told. We passed a number of small roadside shelters called meguniots which normally offer protection for civilians from incoming rockets. Young partygoers fleeing the Nova music festival hid in these concrete bunkers when they came across dozens of terrorists on the broad highway through the desert. We stopped at one and I stepped inside. Incredibly narrow and cramped, no bigger than a garden shed, the space had been turned into a shrine with flickering tea lights, photographs of the beautiful boys and girls who breathed their last in there, and QR codes that allowed you to download individual stories. 'We are in a horror movie,' a girl's voice said. 'Many people are dead, we are shot in the legs, please help,' yelped a boy. He didn't make it. Up to 50 children were packed closely together in that meguniot. Hamas threw grenades in, killing several of them instantly. The injured groaned while those who were still OK made whispered calls to their parents and the police begging for help. Yuval Raphael managed to reach her father. In a recording, you can hear her crying: 'Dad, lots of people are dead. Send the police here. Please Dad, send the police, it's urgent... they're crushing me.' 'Be quiet,' he replied. 'Yuvali, my daughter. Yuvali, breathe deep. Hide. Play dead.' 'Bye,' the 23-year-old said, thinking that was the last time she'd hear his voice. Yuval Raphael was one of the lucky ones, if anything which happened that pitch-dark day can be called good fortune. The bodies of her friends, and people she'd only just met, fell on her. Every so often, the terrorists would come back and strafe the pile of corpses with bullets, determined none would be left alive. Yuval managed to stay very still and silent, even though her leg was badly wounded and the dead and the dying pressed down heavily on her. It was hard to breathe. Eight hours later, she was rescued, one of only 11 people in the shelter to survive. Eight hours when she knew the veil between life and death could be wrenched aside at any moment and ghosts were her close companions. The trauma is hard to imagine. Yuval could be forgiven for retreating from the world and never trusting it again. Tragically, some who lived – girls who were raped and mutilated at the festival site – ended up in psychiatric units. Survivors' guilt could be too hard to bear. A year after the massacre, Shirel Golan, aged 22, died by her own hand at home. Shirel's family said she had found media misinformation about the barbaric atrocities, even downright denial and mockery of what had taken place, extremely distressing. 'She is lying through her teeth and reading a script,' said one reply to a young girl's account of her ordeal. Yuval Raphael defied the haters and did something remarkable. Although she had always known she had a good voice, she didn't begin a professional singing career until after the attack. At the Eurovision Song Contest a fortnight ago, she was Israel's entry, delivering a knockout performance of a hauntingly beautiful ballad, New Day Will Rise. Still with shrapnel in her leg. 'I wished for myself to be happy and to really understand the gift that I had been given, and that's to live,' she told one journalist. Graham Norton, the BBC's commentator for Eurovision, said nothing about the nightmare Yuval had lived through, although you can guarantee a British entry who had hurt his big toe in a tobogganing accident would doubtless have been praised for his astonishing fortitude. 'Israel, continues to be controversial,' Norton murmured when there were boos from the audience. Later, when Yuval won the popular vote by a landslide (coming second overall to Austria) Norton quipped: 'Organisers breathing a sigh of relief they're not faced with a Tel Aviv final next year.' That was how the resurrection of a young woman who survived a massacre by some of the world's most evil men was covered by the BBC. The shabby treatment of Yuval came back to me on Monday morning when I listened to Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's International Editor, talking on the Today programme about the killing of 31 Palestinians at a US-backed aid hub in Gaza. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) denied it had fired on civilians and an Israeli government spokesman claimed rumours were circulated by 'bad faith actors'. Then, on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the BBC over its reporting, saying it constantly took Hamas's word as 'total truth'. While it's hard to know for certain, it seemed perfectly possible that Hamas, furious about losing control over the aid, a lucrative Mafia-like arrangement which it enjoyed when UNWRA (United Nations relief agency – accused of being riddled with corruption) had a monopoly, needed a quick propaganda win to cast doubt over the new American system. But Bowen had other ideas. First he said that 'information I've been getting from medics' backed up what a British doctor had just told Today. Because UK medics based in Gaza are always reliable witnesses (and children are never, ever gravely injured or starved or murdered by Hamas to turn the international community against Israel). As is that UN bloke, Tom Fletcher, who, only recently, told the programme that '14,000 babies in Gaza will die in the next 48 hours' if Israel's 'egregious' action continues. Really? How was that horrifying statistic arrived at? BBC journalists apparently thought it was rude to press Mr Fletcher too hard. His appalling claim, made, he later said, in the heat of a desperate situation, was swiftly debunked, but not before that disgraceful blood libel (a common anti-Semitic trope is that the Jews are baby killers) had travelled around the world. Astonishingly, Tom Fletcher, while admitting his language needed to be more precise in the future, doubled down on suggestions that aid was not being allowed in and it was a 'war crime'. 'That many casualties,' continued Jeremy Bowen, 'included shrapnel as well coming from shells... I think we have to assume that… the Israelis were shooting because that volume of casualties is the kind of volume Israelis only are able to inflict.' Again, really? Why do we always 'have to assume' the worst possible behaviour by the IDF when independent experts say they have inflicted historically low casualties for warfare in a built-up area. Not that all casualties aren't dreadful and distressing (and 27 more Palestinians were tragically killed on Tuesday while waiting for aid to be distributed), but Allied forces inflicted worse when they drove the equally wicked Islamic State out of Iraq. President Obama ordered a siege of the city of Mosul because the terrorists had embedded themselves within civilian areas. There was a notable shortage of media outrage about the 10,000 civilian deaths because the world mainly agreed that the planet was a better place without those fundamentalist b------s in it. Oh, and by the way, what possible motive would Israel have for shooting scores of civilians when it has a vested interest in proving those aid hubs can succeed? Let's not forget it was the BBC which reported that an explosion at Al-Ahli hospital simply must have been caused by Israel before overwhelming evidence emerged that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible. Jeremy Bowen said he didn't regret 'one thing in my reporting, because I think I was measured throughout, I didn't race to judgment.' When the interviewer pointed out that Bowen falsely reported that the hospital building was flattened, he said, 'Oh, yeah, well, I got that wrong.' No biggie, Jeremy. Not coincidentally, Monday's Today programme also carried news of an attack on an event in Boulder, Colorado, which was raising awareness about the Israeli hostages. Twelve people were badly injured, some burned by Molotov cocktails including an elderly lady who had survived the Holocaust. The appalling worldwide surge in anti-Semitism since October 7 2023 – including the recent murder of a young couple who worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington DC – is undoubtedly fuelled by grossly partisan reporting. A week ago there was a racially-motivated knife attack by a group of men on three Jewish boys at Hampstead Tube station; one lad ended up in hospital. More and more British Jews, among our most successful and patriotic citizens (I have never been to a Jewish event where they didn't sing God Save the King), are being driven out of the UK. What on earth must they think when they hear Jeremy Bowen's palpable contempt for Israel – it's so bad I can't bear to listen any more. And much of other BBC reporting is barely disguised anti-Semitism. They say the devil has all the best tunes and Hamas has played the media like a violin. Surely very little by the way of civilised conduct is to be expected from men who strangled the tiny Bibas brothers, baby Kfir and toddler Ariel, with their bare hands. Monsters who streamed over the border and killed nearly all the young women soldiers at the border observation station; most of their bodies so savagely mutilated in acts of sexual rage and depravity what remained of them was unfit to be shown to their grieving parents. Yet the Western media, and a large proportion of the educated liberal world, including the BBC, has been entirely captured by this extremist Islamist group which would murder in cold blood every value, every enlightened idea, every uncovered woman, every gay person, they hold dear. All of the sane Muslim states have banned the crazies, knowing what destruction they wreak, how murderous their creed, how anti-life they are. 'Hamas are terrorists' – a message on a placard that my friend from Our Fight: For Israel Against Anti-Semitism, Mark Birbeck, has been arrested for even holding in central London. A truth – Hamas are terrorists – that the BBC will still not speak. You know, I took some comfort from Yuval Raphael's amazing win in the Eurovision popular vote. Despite the relentless propaganda, a vast number of viewers across the continent decided to support New Day Will Rise and Israel's entry. 'Be quiet,' he replied. 'Yuvali, my daughter. Yuvali, breathe deep. Hide. Play dead.' Hamas massacred 40 beautiful young people in that roadside shelter, and their bodies protected Yuval, so that one day she would sing. And the death-cult shall have no dominion, and they will not win. Must never win. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Eurovision Star Survived Israel's Top Tourist Site, The Nova Festival
Israeli singer Yuval Raphael representing Israel with the song "New Day Will Rise" performs during ... More the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel on May 15, 2025. Raphael is a survivor of the Nova Festival massacre on October 7, 2023. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images) Israel has dozens of important tourist attractions. They range from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites in Jerusalem to the beach at Eilat, the restaurants and shorefront of Tel Aviv to floating on the Dead Sea or visiting the mystical sites of Safed. Pilgrims can visit the River Jordan or the room where the Last Supper is said to have taken place. But the most visited tourist destination is none of these places. The Nova Festival site, where more than 360 mostly young people were murdered at a music festival on October 7, 2023, is the most visited destination in Israel right now. Most visitors are Israeli, but an increasing number of international travelers are coming as well. The KKL – JNF (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael - Jewish National Fund)Israeli National Parks office, operates the park in southern Israel where the festival took place. Dr. Michael Sprintsin, KKL-JNF's Forest Engineer of the Western Negev, told me the Nova Festival site gets between 4000 and 7000 visitors per day. A survivor of the festival, Yuval Raphael, represented Israel in the popular Eurovision Song contest in May 2023. She ended up finishing second with her powerful performance of a 'New Day Will Rise.' Raphael, 24, survived the Nova Festival by hiding under the dead bodies of friends, in a shelter attacked by gunmen. Memorials made by family and friends to individuals who lost their lives at the Nova Music Festival ... More in Israel on October 7, 2023. The National Park where the festival took place has become the most visited tourist site in Israel. Raphael will be one of the featured performers in a benefit concert in Tel Aviv on June 26. The show will benefit the Nova Tribe Community Association, which helps commemorate the victims, support bereaved families, and aid survivors. The Nova Festival was an electronic music and dance outdoor party held in an Israeli national park a few miles from the Gaza Strip. On October 7, 2023, the party was overrun by terrorists who brutally killed 364 partygoers and abducted another 40 to Gaza. Both of these numbers made up a significant portion of the 1200 people killed and 251 kidnapped on October 7. Tragically, several of the more than 50 hostages still being held in Gaza, alive and dead, were attendees or working at the Nova Festival. The site is an hour and a half south of Tel Aviv, along roads also attacked on October 7. At the Nova site, there are newly paved roads, benches and toilets, but no food or gift shops. To reach the Nova site, located at the Re'im Car Parking Lot near Kibbutz Re'im and the Re'im Forest, visitors can join one of the organized tour groups available online. Prices range from approximately $140 for a group tour to around $800 for a private tour. Alternatively, it is possible to rent a car. There is no ticketing or admission charge. We visited on April 30, Israel's Memorial Day, which honors its dead and the victims of terrorism. Every year, everything stops at 1100 when sirens blare all over the country. When the siren blew, we got out of our car and stood at attention. We happened to be at a concrete bus shelter where two people were murdered on October 7. A guitarist plays and sings a song by Yehuda Becher, a concert-goer at the Nova Music Festival in ... More Israel, who lost his life on October 7, 2023. At the site, grieving friends and families have set up impromptu memorials, with brief portraits of the dead written in both Hebrew and English. There are signs with photos, written memories and favorite possessions. Posters on signposts show so many young faces, seemingly so alive. There are some larger group memorials as well. I watched a guitarist play a song written by one of the dead, as a small crowd listened. With this tragic background, why is Nova a tourist site full of cars and buses in its dusty parking lot? It is a folk memorial, different than Israel's other monuments to its dead, like the black monument to those from Jerusalem killed in the war that began October 7, or the desert fortress of Masada where a handful of Jews held off a Roman legion until their deaths. Rusting armored vehicles in the Golan Heights memorialize the greatest tank battle since World War II, where at great cost a hundred Israeli tanks held off 800 attacking Syrian vehicles in 1973. Instead, family and friends have made the Nova site a shrine to beautiful young people who just wanted to dance. There is a stark empty stage where the performers played. There are scores of signs with pictures of smiling young men and women, with tattoos, with dogs, with birds, long hair and short, in bathing suits, in army uniforms, holding guitars. You feel you know them or people just like them. As an international visitor, I did not know any of the victims. But the colorful people smiling confidently at me from the signs and the posters could have been my children. For many other visitors, they could have been their brothers and sisters, their cousins or friends. Later, we talked to a waitress at a beautiful restaurant near the Dizengoff fountain in Tel Aviv. She told us she lost eight friends at Nova. Nova Millions of people have visited Europe's concentration camps like Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald. But few Holocaust survivors remain to describe what happened. At Nova, the survivors are young people still in their twenties, perhaps with a lifetime of trauma ahead of them. Already, more than 50 concertgoers are believed to have committed suicide. At the site, I listened to a woman speaking in English to a group of foreign visitors. It quickly became clear she was talking about her own experience at the Nova Festival, when she and others hid in a trailer, listening to the shooting and the screams. Her husband was shot but survived. The site has some grim reminders. A steel dumpster, with a glass floor containing some garbage from October 7, was where a dozen people hid, only to be discovered and murdered. Signs commemorate a group of young people who sought shelter in a disabled ambulance, only to be killed by a terrorist anti-tank missile. A number of survivors of the Nova Music Festival are telling their stories now. Rita Yadid endured the horrific event alongside her husband and sister. As part of her healing journey, she speaks to groups and shares her story of survival, partly made possible by the bravery of her husband, Guy, who took bullets meant for her. The concert stage at the Nova Festival site in southern Israel. On October 7, 2023, the concert was ... More the site of a terrorist attack that killed over 360 people. Rita has since become a leading voice in the struggle for recognition and support for survivors. Visitors to Israel can set up a discussion or tour of Nova sites with Rita here. A number of films such as 'We Will Dance Again' have been made about the Festival and its survivors. The Nova Festival exhibit, a traveling show that shows the tents, the sleeping bags, the phones and the burnt cars of the murdered, has played in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and currently in Toronto. But nothing has the same impact as wandering among the memorials for these smiling, confident young people, who seem so alive. The site, with its blowing wind and trees growing in the desert, is beautiful and terrible. The beauty, and the rawness, is compelling. Eden Yerushalmi, 24, was working as a bartender when she was kidnapped from the Nova Festival on ... More October 7, 2023. She was murdered in a tunnel along with 5 other hostages on August 28 or 29th, 2024 after 11 months of captivity.
New York Times
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: Israel's Top-Down Eurovision Campaign
'Vote #04 — New Day Will Rise. Vote 20 Times!' BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, the prime minister of Israel, urging his 1.5 million followers on Instagram to vote for Yuval Raphael, her country's entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest finals. Ms. Raphael, who performed 'New Day Will Rise,' lost to the Austrian entrant, JJ.
Irish Independent
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
EBU ‘looking into' promotion of acts and number of votes allowed following Eurovision voting controversy
Eurovision organiser, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), has said it will look at the promotion of Eurovision acts 'by their delegations and associated parties', and the number of votes allowed per person amid calls for an audit of the voting system. Earlier this week, RTÉ requested a breakdown in Eurovision voting numbers. The Irish televote awarded Israel 10 points for Yuval Raphael's song New Day Will Rise, while the jury awarded seven points. RTVE, Spain's public broadcaster, called for a 'complete review' to avoid 'external interference', and VRT, the Flemish public broadcasting company also publicly raised concerns over the voting process. Belgium and Spain's televoters both awarded Israel 12 points, while the juries gave the country zero points. Israel was ranked joint 14th by the national juries but jumped to the top of the leader-board when it received 297 in the public vote. As it currently stands, viewers can currently vote up to 20 times each by phone, text or app. While the EBU says there is no evidence this affects the final result, it will discuss this rule at the annual Reference Group that takes place after the contest each year. We want to ensure that such promotion is not disproportionately affecting the natural mobilisation of communities and diasporas we see in all entertainment audience voting Some countries, including Israel, used advertising on social media channels to promote their act. In an 'open letter' on the Eurovision website, Martin Green, Director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said that the EBU would look into promotion of acts. 'Such promotion is allowed under our rules and acts to celebrate the artists, increase their profile and launch future careers – it's very much part of the music industry - but we want to ensure that such promotion is not disproportionately affecting the natural mobilisation of communities and diasporas we see in all entertainment audience voting,' he said. 'Another example is the number of votes we allow per person – 20 per payment method. This is designed to ensure that audiences of all ages can vote for more than one of their favourite songs and there is no current evidence that it disproportionately affects the final result – but the question has been asked and so we will look at it.' ADVERTISEMENT The EBU has said that the voting system is highly advanced and contains 'multiple security layers and a comprehensive set of rules to ensure that a valid result is generated'. Mr Green said that over 60 individuals in Cologne and other individuals in Vienna and Amsterdam 'monitor the voting process in each country and maintain direct contact with telecommunication and broadcasting partners globally'. The results are then independently authenticated by compliance monitor EY. He said all the concerns and feedback will be considered at the annual reference group for the contest which will take part in June this year. The Song Contest was won on Saturday night by Austrian singer JJ with his techno ballad Wasted Love.
The Journal
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Journal
Eurovision to review ‘promotion' of acts to ensure audience voting is not ‘disproportionally affected'
THE DIRECTOR OF the Eurovision Song Contest has said it will 'look at the promotion of acts by their delegations and associated parties' to ensure 'such promotion is not disproportionally affecting' the audience voting. It comes after Eurovision News Spotlight, an independent news branch of the EBU, published a report which found that an Israeli government agency paid for adverts targeting the Eurovision public vote. The Israeli Government Advertising Agency, which serves various government offices, placed advertisements across Google products, such as YouTube, and provided instructions on how to vote up to 20 times for the country's representative. While such promotion is permitted, concern has been raised that this runs against the spirit of the contest. Voting in Eurovision can be done through the official app (with a limit of 20 votes per person, each costing €0.99), as well as via telephone and SMS. Israel's entrant, Yuval Raphael, finished in second place and her performance received 297 public votes—the highest number of public votes for any act in the Grand Final. Israel had ranked 14th after the jury vote and ended up coming second to Austria after the audience votes were included. Advertisement Analysis carried out by Eurovision News Spotlight of a20 YouTube account created on 20 April , with the username @Vote4NewDayWillRise, found that it published 89 videos between 6 May and 16 May, amassing over 8.3 million views. Meanwhile, Spain's public broadcaster RTVE this week called on Eurovision organisers to investigate the Spanish televote, after the country gave its highest score to Israeli act Yuval Raphael. Here at home, RTÉ also 'requested a breakdown in voting numbers from the EBU' , which is essentially an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area. In an open letter today by the director of the Eurovision , Martin Green, he said that EBU 'will be looking at is the promotion of our acts by their delegations and associated parties'. While Green said 'such promotion is allowed', he added: 'We want to ensure that such promotion is not disproportionally affecting the natural mobilization of communities and diasporas we see in all entertainment audience voting.' He also acknowledged that 'all audience voting shows evidence of the motivation of communities or diasporas around certain contestants'. 'This can be for many reasons,' said Green, 'including personal attributes, back stories, geographic affiliations and current affairs.' Voting is limited to 20 per payment method and Green said 'there is no current evidence that it disproportionally effects the final result'. However, he said the 'the question has been asked and so we will look at it'. Related Reads Actor Stephen Rea joins pro-Palestine demonstration calling for Irish boycott of Eurovision Bakhurst says RTÉ won't pull Irish entry out of Eurovision despite protests against Israel Green also said he 'wants to make sure any ancillary conversations do not overshadow this epic achievement' by the winner JJ of Austria. He said the voting system 'includes multiple security layers' and that all results are verified through the contests voting partner, Once Germany, Green said Once 'collectively have over 40 years of voting experience' and added that 'independent compliance monitor EY oversees and authenticates the results'. He added that the Reference Group for the Eurovision studies the voting data after each contest to 'ensure our rules and systems remain fail safe and take into account contemporary external factors such as advances in technology and external influences'. Need more information on what is happening in Israel and Palestine? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to navigating the news online. Visit Knowledge Bank Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
