Israel warned by EBU over ad campaign calling to support Noam Bettan at Eurovision

The European Broadcasting Union issued a letter of warning to the Kan public broadcaster over an online campaign calling for fans to vote for singer Noam Bettan, amid new voting rules seeking to limit third-party campaigns.

In a statement issued Saturday, Martin Green, the director of the Eurovision, said that after seeing online videos featuring Bettan, “within 20 minutes we had contacted the KAN delegation to ask them to immediately stop any distribution of the videos and remove them from any platforms where they had been published. They immediately acted to do this.”

In response to a query to The Times of Israel, Kan responded only that “the Kan public broadcaster is following all of the rules of the competition.”

A source close to the delegation pointed out that such advertising campaigns are also being run this year by other contestants, including those from Malta and Romania.

The videos in question featured Bettan, in a variety of different languages, calling on fans to vote 10 times for the Israeli song. They had been flagged by a number of Eurovision fan sites as potentially violating the new rules agreed to by EBU members last year in a vote that cleared the way for Israel’s participation.

The rules in question “discourage disproportionate promotion campaigns… particularly when undertaken or supported by third parties, including governments or governmental agencies.” In addition, the rules state that “participating broadcasters and artists are not permitted to actively engage in, facilitate or contribute to promotional campaigns by third parties that could influence the voting outcome.”

Israel’s Eurovision 2026 singer is doing promotional advertisements for Semi Final 1 this year in the languages of Azerbaijani, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian.

Below is the Spanish video: pic.twitter.com/yZFuBepOAQ

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— Adam Mc Callig (@_allthingsadam_) May 8, 2026

It was not immediately clear who was funding the videos featuring Bettan.

In his statement, Green said that the EBU is “satisfied that this video did not form part of” a “large scale funded third-party campaign.” However, he said, the “direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition.”

Green said that due to the voting changes employed this year, including the return of jury votes in the semifinal rounds, “such activity cannot affect the overall result.”

“Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to KAN and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed,” he added.

The rules unveiled last year by the EBU were aimed at quelling some of the concerns raised following the 2024 and 2025 competitions, when Israel did exceptionally well in the televote amid controversy over its participation.

Many of those angry at Israel’s inclusion in the contest pointed to online ads funded by the Israeli government aimed at drumming up popular support for the country’s contestants — something that was not barred at the time and was done by a number of delegations.

In addition to rules about promotional campaigns and the return of jury votes, the new voting reforms cap the number of total votes per fan at 10 instead of 20, and the EBU also said it would enhance its “technical safeguards” to prevent any voter fraud.

Official Eurovision 2026 festivities kick off Sunday evening with the traditional “turquoise carpet” event, where all 35 singers will take part in the opening ceremony under tight security. Anti-Israel protests are likely.

Bettan will take to the stage during the first semifinal on Tuesday evening, competing for a spot in Saturday’s grand final with the pop song “Michelle” in French, Hebrew and English.