Sweden's ambassador to Israel, Erik Olnag, held a special event this evening (Thursday) at his home in Herzliya Pituach, ahead of Eurovision 2024. He hosted Israel's representative for the competition, Aden Golan.
The event also hosted several other representatives of the country for Eurovision in the past - singers Ilanit and Dafna Dekal and songstress Shmarit Or. "My thoughts tonight are with the abductees. Trying to understand what happened on October 7 and the horrors is an impossible thing for me," he said. "I think there is a broad debate in Sweden right now. It is complex. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is internal. I would say that support for Israel after October 7 is very strong. But also, many people in Sweden are pro-Palestinian or are there other voices in Sweden?" he added. "What we hear in Israel is very stressful. The Swedish police take it very seriously. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of security arrangements, the kind that Israel is more used to than Sweden." Ilanit represented Israel twice at Eurovision, including the first contest with Israel's participation in 1973 with the song "Somewhere." "Terrorist threats have existed since the competition in which I represented Israel," she says. "I suggest she just go on stage, to ignore whistles or shouts if there are any, to continue singing to the end and to feel good," Ilanit says. The songwriter Shmarit Or, who wrote the song 'Hallelujah' that won the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, said she did not like the fact that the European Broadcasting Union disapproved the first version of Aden Golan's song. "They bent our hands and that's disrespectful," she said of the EBU's criticism of the original version of "The Rain of October." "I heard that she has already reached the seventh place in the betting, so let's see," says Walla Tarbut. "People are stressed for a good reason. It's not the Swedish people anymore. Malmo has become a city made up entirely of foreigners."