An investigation by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), of which RTVE is a member, has revealed that an official Israeli government agency conducted a digital advertising campaign to boost votes for its representative in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest final. Israeli candidate Yuval Raphael achieved second place after receiving 297 votes from the public, the highest number of any finalist.
According to the investigation, the Israeli advertising agency, which cooperates with institutions and public companies in the country, distributed ads via Google products in the days leading up to the festival’s final in Basel, Switzerland. These included instructions on how to vote for Yuval Raphael, the performer of the song “New Day Will Rise.”
In addition, a YouTube account was created on April 20 and published 89 videos of the singer in 35 countries between May 6 and 16, garnering a total of 8.3 million views. “Analysis of the videos shows no evidence of the use of artificial intelligence, suggesting that Raphael was directly involved in the content creation,” according to the EBU report. These audiovisual works showed the artist calling for votes in various languages, highlighting her entry number 14 in the semi-final and 04 in the final, and pointing out the rules for multiple voting.
On May 6, the account posted 16 videos addressing as many countries. Twelve of these countries – Armenia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, and Serbia – competed in the same semi-final as Israel. On May 16, the eve of the grand final, the broadcaster published 73 videos addressed to 35 countries, urging them to vote for Israel and reminding them of entry number 04.
Although the expert jury placed Israel in 14th place, the audience awarded the highest score of the evening with 297 points, briefly putting Israel in the lead before Austria ultimately won with the jury vote. According to the Google Ads Transparency Center, the ads were served by a verified Israeli government account, even though the YouTube channel was not officially labeled as state-owned. This campaign sparked a debate about the limits of using state resources in public elections.
Following the Eurovision final, messages circulated on social media attributing various statements to the Sevillian singer Melody. “I deserved more, but I’m not ashamed of my performance. I would be ashamed to vote for the PSOE,” read a post on X from May 18, which was shared over 4,000 times. “I deserved more, but I’m not ashamed of my performance. I would be ashamed to support the genocidal state of Israel,” read another message posted on X the same day. However, this information is false.
Melody made no statements about Israel or the PSOE after participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. We contacted the artist’s team, and they denied that the Sevillian singer had made the statements attributed to her. “Those words were not uttered; this has nothing to do with her,” a member of her team told VerificaRTVE, adding that other false quotes from the singer are circulating.
We conducted a keyword search on the Spanish artist’s social media and found no evidence that she made the statements referred to in the circulating messages. The only post Melody made after the festival is a video in which she thanked everyone for their support and commented on her experience in Basel. There is also no record of these statements in the singer’s media appearances after her participation in the event.
On the night of May 17, a message circulated on X, shared more than 7,000 times, claiming in English: “This is what really happened in Israel’s performance.” Attached to this post was a 16-second video showing Yuval Raphael waving a Palestinian flag in the audience. However, this footage was not from Saturday’s final.
The video of Israel’s performance, posted on Saturday, May 17, after Yuval Raphael’s participation, was not recorded in the final. Through a reverse search, we confirmed that the same footage has been circulating on social media since May 15. Starting at minute 31 of this RTVE.es broadcast, you can see Yuval Raphael’s performance in the final on Saturday, May 17.
Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 was surrounded by controversy and several incidents. We report Already in these RTVE news reports, there was talk of the dress rehearsal before the second semi-final on May 15, during which six people were sent off for booing.
Source: RTVE
