I am guessing that Eden Golan is not a name widely recognized in this part of the world. I am also guessing that not many of us are aware of Eurovision, an international song competition sponsored annually by the European Broadcasting Company. In Europe, it is a huge event, with competitions held throughout the year in several countries. This year, the grand final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest was held just a day or two ago in Malmo, Sweden.
Eden Golan is a singer and composer. She is Jewish, of Russian-Israeli heritage, and was born in Israel. At 20, she is an extremely popular entertainer in Israel, especially among younger generations. Her talent is also recognized in other countries.
Golan participated in the Eurovision Song Contest this year, advancing through several preliminary events and earning a place in the final competition, which was held in Malmo, Sweden.
And that is where all hell broke loose.
Eden Golan is a performer. She is not a politician. She is not an Israeli poster girl for what is now happening in the Middle East. In Israel, young people, especially girls, are encouraged to dance and be happy, unlike in nearby territories, where that is taboo. Eden Golan has become a symbol of that happiness.
And yet her appearance at the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo resulted in massive so-called pro-Palestinian demonstrations in that city, blocking access to that event, protesting the participation of an Israeli performer in the contest, and putting her personal safety in significant danger.
There were more than fifteen thousand of them parading and shouting, “We will crush Zionism” and “There is only one solution – Intifada – Revolution,” among other antisemitic slogans.
For all of her time in Sweden, Elan Golan needed extensive security and protection because the demonstrators were targeting a young Jewish performer. The city was disrupted, and the police were out in force.
It would be one thing, I suppose, if this were an isolated incident, but sadly it is not. Demonstrations like this are happening all over Europe and North America, if not elsewhere. They are often violent, and they are always antisemitic in nature. They are only pro-Palestinian in the sense that they want to wipe out Jewish people. In the main, they support Hamas and celebrate what happened in Israel on October 7th.
Jewish people, who are far from Israel, are targeted. They do not feel safe in their homes, their businesses, or their place of worship. Those with any sense of history will see a frightening similarity here with events immediately before and during much of World War Two.
The hard facts are that antisemitism has spread exponentially in most parts of the world since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israeli war. Often, it is combined with genuine concern for Palestinian citizens, but nevertheless, at its base is a determination to wipe out the State of Israel and the Jewish people who live there.
I wonder sometimes if it is not the Hamas-Israeli war that has allowed millions of people around the world to find a venue to express long-held, suppressed feelings of anger, revenge, and hate not necessarily related to what is happening in the Middle East but merely an opportunity, a platform, on which they can let it all out. If that is so, it is frightening.
I would hope that most people would agree that Hamas started the war with Israel on October seventh of last year and that Israel had a right to defend itself. As well, however, there are many who believe that Israel has gone too far in retaliation and that too many innocent Palestinians have died as a result, and thousands of others are left without the necessities of life.
There are worldwide calls for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, and in my view, with the humanitarian crisis that now exists in that region, a cease-fire should occur.
But one should also remember that wars once started, by definition, create civilian casualties. In Europe alone, during World War Two, 38 million civilians lost their lives.
It would be good if a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas could prevent further casualties and effectively provide aid to those Palestinians who desperately need it. It is hard to understand, however, how such a cease-fire could become permanent.
Hamas and most Palestinians are dedicated to the extermination of Jews in the Middle East. It is essentially part of their DNA. Even Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, which proposed a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, said this only a few years later. “We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew, from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land.”
Can there ever be a permanent peace when one side is dedicated to the extermination of the other?
But we do need a cease-fire now, as temporary as it might be. Outside peacekeeping forces will be essential to ensure that much-needed humanitarian aid goes directly to the people who require it, that a total cease-fire is honored by both Israel and Hamas, and that the pause in fighting does not result in the buildup of more war-like resources.
But a longer and more permanent solution is not in the cards as long as Palestinians and Israelis cannot live peacefully with each other. It is hard to see how that will ever happen, and that brings us to the Gordian Knot.
A Gordian Knot, in its metaphoric state, is one in which several matters are combined and so tightly wound together that the knot cannot be torn apart.
It is my view that the Hamas-Israeli war, in itself, pretty well a regional war, has spawned a wave of unrest, clothed in antisemitism around much of the world in a manner that emulates former world conflicts and could once again threaten world peace. My fear is that the two are now so tightly wound together that they cannot be disentangled.
Hopefully, I am wrong.
Hugh Mackenzie
Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.
Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.
In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.
Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.
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Anthony Clark says
If you follow on line media such as the NYT you will know Eden Golan who finished well but did not win in 2024 in Malmo.
Re Eurovision that has been going since 1956 readers may reflect that pre ABBA it was a lovable but kooky show where Eoro singers often resorted to basic lyrics in English,
Famously ABBA but also Cliff Richard Olivia Newton John and amazingly Lale Andersen have participated. Celine Dion sang the Swiss entry in 1988 at a tender age and won.
Hugh Holland says
Good analysis Hugh, but we need to dig deeper to understand. Hamas did indeed start this recent chapter of a centuries-old conflict. Religious extremism, resulting in lack of economic opportunity, resulting in gross inequality, and an increasing lack of water resources in the area because of climate change are all part of the mix. Israel gets most of its potable water from desalination of sea water. Desalination equipment is very expensive, and the generally poorer Palestinians who get much less economic support from other countries cannot afford it.
Neither Iran or Israel chose the much cheaper option of helping the poorer Palestinians. To get re-elected, the far-right Netanyahu encouraged Israeli settlers to move into the West Bank, thereby pushing Palestinians out of an area with already limited potable water into an area with essentially no potable water. After 800,000 Israeli settlers moved into the West Bank, Iran backed Hamas had the excuse they were looking for to reignite the simmering conflict. Israel retaliated with a gross imbalance of power. Young people everywhere are always the first to be incensed by gross acts of unfairness.
BJ BOLTAUZER says
It is really sad and scary when folks start mixing arts & entertainment with politics. It does not achieve anything good.
In the opinion of many reasonable people, the only long-term solution to the Israel – Hamas problem would be creating a separate self-governing state for the Palestinians with secure borders to prevent encroachments. Both nations deserve a state of their own. Both nations should accept and acknowledge the right of existence of the other.
Enid Young says
Thanks for your balanced and thoughtful article. Many Jewish people, like myself were raised by parents that were deeply traumatized by the war and the Holocaust. When we see the hateful rhetoric and demonstrations that are occurring all over the world it makes us feel isolated and fearful. It’s comforting to know that we have people in our corner.
David Harrison says
WW2 was won by eradicating the Nazis from Germany and Japanese imperialists from Japan. Similarly, democracies are created by removing dictators and idealogues from their thrones. Estimates suggest that some 75 million people died in World War II, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians. Fighting evil has a very high cost.
The young people we see protesting around the world today on university campuses and in national capitals on behalf of the people of Gaza and Palestine are horrifically naïve. I would take it one step further and argue that they have willfully allowed themselves to be deceived and become ideologues themselves.
To these young ideologues, I pose the following hypothetical scenario and ask how they would respond if they were the ones responsible for addressing the following situation:
The January Sixth throng of MAGA idealogues believe that Canada, because it once set the Whitehouse aflame (this actually happened on August 24, 1814), has no right to exist as a nation and must become part of the USA. To achieve their aims, they once again cross the Niagara River, and, across a 40 km front, more than 1,000 ‘MAGA terrorists’ attack Toronto. They reached High Park in the middle of the city and opened fire on 3,500 young concertgoers, mercilessly killing more than 260. At other locations, these terrorists break into homes, shooting anyone they find there: men, women, children, and babies. They went on a 48-hour rampage of raping, dismembering, and burning people alive. These bloodthirsty terrorists wore cameras to record their evil, gruesome activities.
By the time it is over, 695 Toronto civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 police officers and 71 foreigners, a total of 1,139 are dead, and countless others are left with devastating wounds. They left 630 children orphaned, 177 people widowed, and 693 parents bereaved. According to the mayor of Toronto, 252 Canadians and foreign visitors were taken back across the border to the lair of these sadistic terrorists. They still hold 128 hostages, including your mother (they gang-raped your sister and then killed your father, brother, and sister by cutting their throats). Those wounded are typically three times the number of those killed in a conflict.
Your job is to get the hostages, including your mother, back alive and ensure that an atrocity such as this can never happen again. What are you going to do? Negotiate with these murderers? Are you going to ask all the other ‘keffiyeh-wearing’ Americans why they didn’t stop them from killing your father, brother, and sister? Are you going to hold them responsible, too?
Israel has had it far worse as these kinds of [non-hypothetical] activities have been going on for decades, even centuries. Please, before you wrap a keffiyeh around your neck and hold a placard condemning Israel, check your moral compass and consider what Israel is contending with.
Let’s ask another question that you need to answer: Why the focus on the Palestinian (Gazan) situation? What about protesting against Russia, who is responsible for the death of 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the imperialistic intent of one man leading to a combined total of 220,000 deaths of men, women and children?
And then there are other conflicts in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Morocco, and Libya, with more than 70,00 fatalities. Why are you quiet about these?
What about protesting against the 52 national dictators (those who maintain power through intimidation, imprisonment, violence, or assassination, leading to low freedom levels and loss of personal autonomy and political choice)? Is that not worth your time?
Did you know that Gaza is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis, chapter 10, where it is noted that it was settled by the great-grandchildren of Noah? Biblically, over the centuries, it has been the home of the Canaanites, Avvites, Philistines, Israelites, Midianites and Amalekites, Philistines, Israelites, Greeks, Philistines, Egyptians, Israelites, Philistines (for the last time), Israelites, and then the Romans, Egypt (Muslim rule), the British following WW2, the Egyptians in 1948, the Israelites in 1967. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel handed over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority and withdrew from Gaza in 2005. By 2007, Hamas emerged both as the victor in Palestinian elections and in factional fighting with rival Fatah in the city and the wider Gaza Strip and has since been the sole governing authority.
This is what the 1988 Gazan (Hamas) covenant (constitution) says: “Israel will arise and continue to exist until Islam wipes it out, as it wiped out what went before.” When the cry goes up, “From sea to sea!” they are literally calling for the annihilation of Israel. Is this what you agree with?
If you want to know more about Hamas and the radical Palestinian mentality, I highly recommend reading Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hassan Yousef, the co-founder of Hamas.
Anna-Lise Kear says
Thank you again, Mr. Holland, for your comments. I suggest reading the prophet Amos who reiterated what happens when Israel (or indeed, we) ignore or oppress others. When there is failure to look out for the poor…