Cartoonist Harry Burton: 'Israel should be banned from all cultural and sporting events, not just Eurovision'

Cartoonist Harry Burton, who drew widespread attention with a recent piece criticising Israel’s participation in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, said allowing Israel to compete despite its genocide in Gaza is wrong and that in fact it should be banned from all cultural and sporting events. 

The European Broadcasting Union's Dec. 4 decision to allow Israel to compete in next year’s Eurovision in Vienna has sparked a backlash across the continent. Citing Israel's deadly attacks on Palestinians and the ongoing attacks and famine in Gaza, national broadcasters of Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia, and Iceland have all announced that they would withdraw from the contest in protest. Other countries could follow. 

The cartoon by Burton, for the Irish Examiner, came just days after the much-criticised decision to allow Israel to participate. The December 6 cartoon shows an Israeli singer, microphone and flag in hand, clad in blue under a spotlight. At the foot of her dress, however, are red bloodstains, and surrounding her, past the bright lights and shrouded in darkness, is the ruined landscape of the Gaza Strip, left little but rubble by Israel’s two-year-plus assault. His cartoon drew both praise and criticism from many online. "The way Israel is able to take part in Eurovision after what it did to Palestine, while also committing a genocide, is "wrong," he said.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 70,700 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, and injured over 171,000 others in a brutal assault that also left the enclave in ruins.