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Just when you thought Eurovision had reached peak absurdity – with its glitter-drenched cliches, outlandish lyrics, and performances that make your local karaoke night look refined – it sank even lower in 2025. This year, Israel not only participated amid its ongoing assault on Gaza and international law, it nearly won.

In the lead-up to the contest, activists across Europe called for Israel’s exclusion. Seventy-two former Eurovision contestants signed an open letter demanding that Israel – and its national broadcaster, KAN – be banned. Protests, petitions, and campaigns swept across the continent, urging the contest to uphold its supposed values of “European unity and culture” rather than spotlight a state accused of systematically starving and bombing a captive population of two million.

But Eurovision did not listen.

Instead, it handed the stage to 24-year-old Yuval Raphael – a survivor of Hamas’s October 7 attack on the Nova Music Festival – who won the public televote in most countries and placed second overall, edged out only because, unlike the public, most professional juries preferred Austria’s entry.

Understandably, Israel’s surprising near-victory triggered a wave of backlash. With populations that have been most vocal in their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza – such as Ireland – supposedly giving the highest marks to Raphael, widespread accusations of vote-rigging emerged. National broadcasters in Spain and Belgium filed formal complaints with the European Broadcasting Union, demanding an investigation into potential manipulation of the televoting system. Meanwhile, The Intercept’s audio analysis revealed that Eurovision organisers had muted audience booing and chants of “Free Palestine” during Raphael’s live performance.

In the aftermath of this year’s contest, the calls for Israel’s exclusion from Eurovision are louder than ever before. Clearly, for many across Europe who love Eurovision – whether for its camp, spectacle, or nostalgic charm – but who also care about international law and Palestinian lives, Israel’s continued inclusion is a moral failure.

And yet, I believe Israel belongs in Eurovision and should stay in the competition going forward. Here’s why.

For one thing, Israel’s continued participation would reflect the reality of European policy. Despite growing public outrage, many European leaders have been unwavering in their support for Israel throughout its devastating campaign in Gaza. While countries like Spain and the Republic of Ireland have called for a reassessment of the European Union’s relationship with Israel, for most of Europe, it’s been business as usual.

In February 2025, despite mounting pressure from human rights groups, European foreign ministers met with their Israeli counterpart and insisted that “political and economic ties remain strong”. A few months later, seven EU countries issued a joint statement calling for an end to what they described as a “man-made humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.  But without action, these words rang hollow.

Europe is also divided on whether it would honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain indicated they would comply. The United Kingdom, as usual, hedged, saying only that it would “comply with legal obligations under domestic and international law”. Meanwhile, Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, flatly refused to enforce the warrant. And among Europe’s largest players – France, Germany, and Italy – the response has ranged from evasive to outright dismissive. France claimed Netanyahu enjoys immunity since Israel isn’t an ICC member; Italy said arresting him would be “unfeasible”; and Germany’s newly elected Chancellor Friedrich Merz even vowed to find “ways and means” for Netanyahu to visit.

Given how European leaders have shown far more enthusiasm for cracking down on Palestine solidarity activists than holding Israel accountable, it feels only fitting that Israel continues to sing and dance on the ruins of Palestinian lives – hand in hand with its European friends.

But this alliance isn’t just political. Those who are promoting it suggest it’s also cultural, and even “civilisational”.

Many Western intellectuals have long cast Israel as an outpost of European values in a supposedly savage region. After October 7, this narrative was renewed with fresh urgency. French public intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, while insisting he is a “militant defender of human rights”, framed Israel – apartheid and all – as a moral beacon when compared to the usual “others”: Russians, Turks, Chinese, Persians, and Arabs. Their imperial ambitions, he argued, pose a far greater threat to “civilisation” than Israel’s “policy of colonising the West Bank”. He even praised Israel’s “moral fortitude” and supposed concern for civilian life in Gaza – words that have not aged well after 19 months of pure carnage.

American commentator Josh Hammer’s book, Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West, is even more explicit. For him, Israel is the West’s “agent” in a region plagued by violence and Islamic “terrorism”. Those who support Palestinian rights are, in his words, “anti-American, anti-Western jackals”. UK commentator Douglas Murray echoes the same civilisational framing in the book On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, calling Israel a bulwark of good in a world of evil.

Israeli leaders have adopted this language, too. Netanyahu declared shortly after October 7 that “Israel is fighting the enemies of civilisation itself”, urging the West to show “moral clarity”. According to this world view, Israel doesn’t just defend itself – it defends the entire Western civilisation.

All this may sound far removed from a song contest. But Eurovision has always been more than sequins and key changes. It’s a projection of “Europeanness” – and “Europe,” as a concept, has always been political. It’s built on a colonial legacy that imagined Europe as enlightened, orderly, and rational – defined in opposition to the supposedly backward, emotional, and irrational non-European “other”.

This legacy justified colonial conquests and the violent suppression of anti-colonial uprisings. Massacres were cast as the price of restoring order; ethnic cleansing, a civilizing mission. Today, that same narrative lives on in how the West frames Israel – as a beleaguered democracy standing bravely against barbarism.

So when people call for Israel to be banned from Eurovision over this year’s vote-rigging allegations, I can’t help but note the irony: that its genocidal campaign in Gaza didn’t cross a red line for Europe – but cheating in a song contest just might.

If Eurovision were to expel Israel now, it would be the harshest penalty the continent has ever imposed on the nation – and it would be not for mass killing, but for meddling with pop music.

And so, yes – I believe Israel should stay in Eurovision.

After all, Europe and Israel deserve each other.

Javaid Iqbal, a resident of Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, downloads a photo from his phone. It shows a little girl sporting a pink woollen beanie, a grey trinket slung loosely around her neck – her face beaming in a wide smile.

His daughter, Maryam, 5, who was only recently pictured in the photo, was delighted to pose for the photo. She is no longer with us today.

Maryam was killed on the morning of May 7 when an explosive landed on their home in Sukha Katha, a cluster of some 200 homes in Poonch district of Indian-administered Kashmir, some 20km (12 miles) from the Line of Control (LoC), India’s de facto border with Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan region.

Iqbal, 36, cries out while holding his phone in his chest, “Oh, Maryam.” I can’t bear to lose this, I tell myself.

Maryam was among at least 21 civilians – 15 of them in Poonch – killed in cross-border shelling in Indian-administered Kashmir in early May as the South Asian nuclear powers and historical enemies engaged in their most intense military confrontation in decades. They exchanged missiles and drones for four days before declaring a ceasefire on May 10 and stood on the verge of their fifth conflict.

Even though the conflict continues, a truce has been established, and both countries have launched diplomatic outreach efforts to persuade the world about their narrative in a conflict that dates back to 1947, when the British split the subcontinent and carved its way into India and Pakistan.

But for families of those who lost relatives in the cross-border firing, the tenuous peace along the LoC at the moment means little.

Iqbal yells, “My heart bleeds when I think about how you [Maryam] died in my arms.

The earth shook beneath us, according to the legend.

For decades, residents along the LoC have found themselves caught in the line of fire between India and Pakistan, who have fought three of their four previous wars over Kashmir. Two sizable parcels of the region are under Chinese control, with China also administering the other two parcels. However, Pakistan also claims all of Kashmir, with the exception of parts of the region that are ruled by China, its allies.

In 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC that – despite frequent border skirmishes and killings of civilians on both sides – broadly held, and was renewed in 2021.

In Pahalgam, a picturesque resort in Indian-administered Kashmir, gunmen killed 25 tourists and a Kashmiri pony rider on April 22, triggering the most recent chapter of the India-Pakistan-India conflict.

Islamabad refuted the accusations that New Delhi made of Pakistan supporting the gunmen. Since the beginning of an armed rebellion against India’s rule in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1989, New Delhi has accused Islamabad of training and financially supporting the rebels. Islamabad claims that the separatist movement only receives diplomatic and moral support from it.

The Indian military launched missiles at several cities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on May 7 to condemn the killings of the Pahalgam. India claimed it struck “terror camps” and killed about 100 “terrorists”. More than 50 people were killed, according to Pakistan, the majority of whom were civilians and also had members of the military as victims.

Pakistan fired a lot of shots from across the border. Iqbal says he was jolted awake at about 2am on May 7 by the sounds of artillery shells landing “one after the other, their thuds rattling the earth beneath us”.

He told Al Jazeera, “I made frantic calls to everyone I knew, including police, administration officials, and toll-free emergency numbers like 108, pleading with them to save me and my family.” “But no one arrived,” he said.

He says he huddled his family – his wife, three children and three children of his brother who were with them at the time – in an outhouse abutting their main house, hoping that cinder blocks on top of the structure would make it more resilient to any Pakistani shells.

The explosions continued to occur.

He claims that a shell scurried across the mountains shortly after sunrise, leaving behind a trail of smoke, and causing an explosion close to their shelter. Its splinters hurtled in every direction, blasting through the walls behind which Iqbal and his family had sought refuge.

As he perched his gaze through the murky haze, his focus was on Maryam, whose tiny body was strewn among the debris, which had soaked up her blood.

“I requested assistance from a friend. He alerted the administration, who sent an ambulance, which tried to come near our house, but the continuous shelling forced it to return”,&nbsp, he said, adding that the ambulance attempted to come closer five times but could not.

Maryam was dead by the time the shelling was over and they were able to visit the hospital. Iram Naaz, her sister, was also struck by a splinter in her forehead, and is recovering in the family’s ancestral village in Qasba, close to the LoC.

A ghost town

Sukha Katha received three days of shelling. Today, it appears to be a ghost town, only to experience the ominous silence of strong winds sweeping through the windows and doors of empty homes, with dust and fluttering curtains all over them.

Most residents who fled the shelling haven’t returned.

According to resident Muhammad Mukhar, a 35-year-old resident, “there are about 200 homes here and they are empty because everyone has fled to safety.” Only a few people, including him, remained. “We are just keeping an eye out for thieves. Because things are still uncertain, these townpeople are unlikely to make a comeback soon.

According to Kashmiri political analyst Zafar Choudhary, the villagers still harbor concerns about additional attacks. He says the loss of civilian lives on the&nbsp, Indian side of the border in Poonch&nbsp, is due to the “peculiar” topography of the region, which confers a “unique advantage” to Pakistan.

He claims that Pakistani army posts are perched high on mountain tops, overlooking the civilian habitations there, while the majority of the towns and villages on the Indian side are located down in valleys. The Pakistani side’s impact on civilians would be minimal, even if India retaliated. This makes border towns such as Poonch vulnerable”.

An asphalt road weaves through the forests and ravines of Poonch and Jammu, a town of deteriorating brick and rebar towns in southern India, connecting the plains of Jammu with the towns of Khanetar, which are dotted with life-size advertisements for sodas.

Vihan Kumar, 13, was killed inside the family’s car in this village when a Pakistani shell explosion occurred while they were attempting to flee the firing. &nbsp, The boy died on the spot, his skull ripped open.

Sanjeev Bhargav, Vihan’s father, recalls that “it was a loud sound, and at once my son was in a pool of blood.” Vihan breathed his last at the Poonch district hospital right away. Vihan was the only child of his parents.

The “Naked Dance of Death”

Arusha Khan, a 46-year-old teacher, is battling for his life at the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu, the second-largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Poonch, where his husband, Rameez Khan, is battling for his life after shrapnel punctures the left side of his liver.

They are mourning the loss of their twins – son Zain Ali and daughter Urba Fatima – who died in the shelling of their house on May 7. In April, they had turned twelve.

When the terrified twins called their uncle, Arusha’s brother Aadil Pathan, who was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away and pleaded with him to save them, they were cowering inside their Poonch home.

“The children were scared to their wits ‘ end”, Arusha’s sister Maria Pathan tells Al Jazeera over the telephone. “Aadil left his car at 5:30 am and drove to their destination an hour later.”

Aadil apparently swung open Aadil’s car door after calling from outside the house. But as soon as the trapped family came out and began to dash in the direction of the car, a shell struck. Urba passed away instantly. According to Maria, Rameez also lost “extremely bloody blood” as a result of his injuries.

“And suddenly, Arusha couldn’t see Zain around”, says Maria. He staggered into a neighbor’s home about 100 meters (300 feet) away because he was hurt. He was just a body on the floor when Arusha rushed to see him. He, too, had died.

In the midst of sobs, Maria declares, “We don’t wish for our enemies what has happened to my sister and her family.”

Attacks on children during these kinds of conflicts between two countries, according to Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director.

“Indiscriminately striking civilian areas is a violation of international humanitarian law”, she says, speaking to Al Jazeera. They would constitute war crimes if such attacks were planned and carried out.

Shamim Ganai, a politician from Poonch, claims the destruction caused by the Pakistani shelling was a “naked dance of death.”

“We weren’t prepared for what we eventually came to experience. No steps were taken to evacuate the residents. He recalls that many people were simply running and carrying chickens and other items in their arms.

Other than water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage worldwide. It takes second and third place, behind only beer and coffee, respectively.

The United Nations designates May 21 as International Tea Day, honoring the beverage’s significance and value both globally, both economically and culturally.

In many societies, tea has a significant place. Tea is regarded as a calming and cordial substance, from Tibetan po cha to traditional English breakfast tea.

The UN has not yet determined where the tea’s exact origins are, but it is believed to have been found in northeast India, northern Myanmar, and southwest China. One of the oldest beverages in the world is tea, which is dated to 5, 000 years ago.

How to say tea all over the world

Nearly all of the world’s tea terms can be derived from the root words “cha” or “te” in the same way.

The term “tea” is derived from cha in many of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

• In Mandarin: 茶 (chá)
• In Arabic: شاي (shāy)
• Yay in Turkish:
• In Hindi: चाय (chāi)

Many nations in Western Europe make use of some form of te. As a result of trade routes in the East, “tea” was first introduced into the English language. The phrase “te” was derived from China and pronounced “te” in the Hokkien dialect.

• Tea in English
• The French phrase:
• Teja in Spanish:
• tee in English

Who produces the most tea globally?

The tea plant is typically grown in tropical and subtropical climates, where millions of people depend on their livelihoods from agriculture.

China produces nearly half of the world’s tea, according to the most recent data from the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal’s Global Tea Report. India accounts for 20% of global production, followed by Kenya (8%), Turkiye (4%), and Sri Lanka (3%).

Worldwide, there are 17 percent of tea productions in the rest of the world.

How much tea is consumed every day in the entire world?

World tea consumption increased by 6.5 million tonnes in 2022, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, surpassing previous years’ 6.5 million tonnes.

Tea is consumed by China, the nation with the highest tea consumption, 3 million tonnes in 2022, or 46% of global consumption.

In 2022, Turkiye, which is the second-largest consumer, had a share of nearly 18%, coming in at 1.16 million tonnes, Pakistan with 247, 000 tonnes, and Russia with 133, 000 tonnes.

Tea consumption increased by 2% in 2022 compared to 2021, and by 20% more in 2023, according to the FAO.

However, the war in Ukraine has had a negative impact on tea imports in countries like Europe and North America, while tea consumption has decreased as a result of stronger competition from other beverages.

Five strange teas from different parts of the world

Here are five distinctly unusual teas from around the world and how to prepare them for this year’s International Tea Day:

Po cha, butter tea

Found in: Tibet and other Himalayan regions

What’s strange about that? It is contained in the name. Butter tea is made with yak butter, black tea, and salt. According to legend, the host will refill your cup with butter tea until you decline or until they stop filling it, signaling that you need to leave.

Is it tea, or just Kombucha?

Found in Korea, Japan, and China.

What’s strange about that? Kombucha is regarded as a tea. A jelly-like SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) is the basis of this fermented tea. Kombucha fans frequently give their SCOBYs names, names, and pets as family heirlooms.

Butterfly pea flower tea

found in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.

What’s strange about that? Because of its color, which turns purple when you add lemon juice, it is known as blue tea. It contains a concoction of floral petals from the blue pea flower, which is caffeine-free.

Baobab tea with leaf

Found in: Africa sub-Saharan.

What’s odd?: Baobab tea with leaf is traditionally used in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa as a mild herbal remedy and nutritional drink.

Baobab leaf tea has a mildly earthy or even mildly bitter flavor, similar to spinach water, unlike most herbal teas, which are frequently floral or fruity.

Guava leaf tea

Found in: Africa, Central America, and the Philippines.

What’s strange about that? Guava tree leaves, which have an earthy flavor, are used to make the tea. It is said to have medicinal properties in the culture of the Philippines for relieving stomach aches and minor cuts.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a “landmark deal” with the EU that lays the ground for closer collaboration with the bloc.

Nearly nine years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the new agreement includes a new security and defence pact, fewer restrictions on British food exporters and visitors, and a controversial new fishing agreement.

Britain said the reset with its biggest trading partner would reduce red tape for agricultural producers, making food cheaper. The deal would also improve energy security and, by 2040, add nearly 9 billion pounds ($12.1bn) to the economy.

While Starmer sold the deal as a “win-win”, attacks immediately emerged from the opposition Conservative Party, which said the deal would make the UK a “rule-taker” from Brussels.

Nigel Farage, head of the hard-right, pro-Brexit Reform UK party, called the deal an “abject surrender”.

What are the terms of the deal?

As part of Monday’s defence-and-security agreement, the UK and the EU will work more closely on information sharing, maritime issues and cybersecurity.

Crucially for Britain, the bloc committed to exploring ways for the UK to access EU procurement defence funds.

British weapons manufacturers can now take part in a 150-billion-euro ($169bn) programme to rearm Europe – part of United States President Donald Trump’s push for Brussels to spend more on defence.

Meanwhile, both sides have agreed to work on a joint agrifood agreement to remove Brexit-era trade barriers like safety checks on animals, paperwork and bans on certain products.

In 2023, UK food and drink exports to the EU were worth 14 billion pounds ($18.7bn), accounting for 57 percent of all the sector’s overseas sales. Monday’s agreement should raise that.

In exchange, the UK will need to follow EU food standards – a system known as “dynamic alignment” – and accept the European Court of Justice’s oversight in this area.

There have been talks on linking up the UK and EU’s carbon markets (i.e., a tradable price on CO2 emission) and on a joint electricity market.

The deal also paves the way for the UK’s return to the Erasmus student exchange programme, as well as granting young people access to the EU through work and travel.

In a symbolic gesture to please tourists, Britons will be allowed to use border e-gates at most EU airports, reducing queues at passport controls.

Finally, the UK will grant EU fishers access to British waters for an additional 12 years, an eleventh-hour concession from the UK – three times longer than it had originally offered.

Does this amount to backtracking on Brexit?

Critics from the Conservative Party and Reform UK quickly denounced the deal as a betrayal of Brexit, arguing that the price of the trade agreement was excessive.

The fisheries deal drew fierce disapproval, with opposition politicians saying it meant handing over Britain’s fishing waters to European fishers for an extra decade.

Fishing is a key issue in the UK, despite making up just 0.04 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). And Starmer’s deal appears to have reignited tensions last seen during Brexit negotiations.

Offering “12 years access to British waters is three times longer than the govt wanted,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X. “We’re becoming a rule-taker from Brussels once again.”

Reform’s leader, Farage, told Bloomberg that Starmer’s deal on fisheries “will be the end of the industry”. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation called it a “horror show”.

Elsewhere, there were complaints about Britain having to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice on agrifood policies.

For their part, the Conservatives vowed to reverse all these changes if they got back into power.

Still, Starmer stuck firmly to his election promise of not re-joining the European single market (in which goods and people can move freely) or the customs union (which eliminates tariffs on goods traded between EU countries).

What were the costs of Brexit?

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Ministry of Finance’s independent forecaster, the UK’s decision to leave the EU will shrink trade flows by 15 percent.

The OBR also that calculated Brexit will lower GDP by 4 percent over the long term. That’s the equivalent of costing the economy 100 billion pounds ($134bn) per year.

For starters, Brexit involved erecting significant trade barriers with Europe. In 2024, UK goods exports to the EU were 18 percent below their 2019 level, in real terms.

The decision to leave the EU also triggered business uncertainty. Lacking clarity over the UK’s future economic relationship with the EU, business investment softened.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that business investment was 13 percent lower in 2023 than under a remain scenario.

Brexiteers promised that leaving the EU would allow Westminster to sign global free trade agreements and break away from the EU’s demanding regulatory regime.

“The argument was that doing business at home and abroad would be simplified,” says Gaurav Ganguly, head of EMEA Economic Research at Moody’s Analytics.

“And while the UK has signed several trade deals since 2020, Brexit has not unleashed the potential that was talked about [by its advocates].”

In recent weeks, the UK has signed up to trade agreements with India and the US. But Britain’s average GDP growth was just 0.64 percent between 2020 and 2024.

Elsewhere, public support for Brexit has fallen since the 52-48 percent leave vote in the 2016 referendum.

Earlier this year, polling by YouGov found only 30 percent of Britons now think it was right for the UK to vote to leave the EU, versus 55 percent who say it was wrong.

Roughly 60 percent of people believe Brexit has gone badly, including one-third of leave voters. A majority also believe that leaving the EU has damaged Britain’s economy.

Are the economic benefits from the new agreement?

Ever since last year’s election, the Labour government has pledged to improve Britain’s anaemic levels of growth. It sees lower trade barriers with the EU as crucial to that goal.

Acknowledging the damage inflicted to Britain’s trade by Brexit, Starmer said the deal to remove restrictions on food would give 9 billion pounds ($12bn) boost to the UK economy by 2040.

In a government briefing, Downing Street said it would redress the 21 percent drop in exports and 7 percent drop in imports seen since Brexit.

That said, 9 billion pounds ($12bn) would amount to just 0.2 percent of the UK’s national output. As such, this week’s agreement deal has dismantled only a fraction of the trade barriers erected post-Brexit.

“Yesterday’s deal may lift growth,” Ganguly told Al Jazeera. “But the UK economy continues to struggle from structural weaknesses, including low productivity and limited fiscal space.”

The Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, recently calculated that the UK-EU reset would boost Britain’s GDP by between 0.3 percent and 0.7 percent.

Ganguly said he is “not inclined to change my forecast in the short term”, adding “In addition, it’s clear that yesterday’s agreements won’t completely reverse the economic hit from Brexit.”