An investigation has found that Israel’s government have orchestrated a “well-organised campaign” to use the Eurovision Song Contest as a “soft power” tool. The investigation was carried out by New York Times and claims that Israel carried out a state-backed influence campaign during past editions of Eurovision – fuelling speculation that the results were distorted as a result. In the report, New York Times claims that the Israeli government used the song contest as a way to “burnish the country’s flagging reputation and rally international support”, and had implemented promotional efforts around the contest dating back to 2018. It claims that the government spent at least $1million (£730,000) on marketing for Eurovision. Some of this funding came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hasbara office, which works on issues related to the nation’s public image. In 2024 alone, there was reportedly $800,000 (£587,110) allocated towards “vote promotion” for the contest.…