Palestinian Flags on Live TV

MAY 15 2019 · 12:05

Hatari · "Hatrið mun sigra" · Iceland · 2019 Placement: 10th · Language: Icelandic · Composers: Matthías Tryggvi Haraldsson, Klemens Hannigan, Einar Stefánsson · Venue: Expo Tel Aviv · Host: Tel Aviv, Israel · Type: protest · Broadcast: streaming On May 18, 2019, at Expo Tel Aviv, the Icelandic trio Hatari performed 'Hatrið mun sigra' — 'Hate Will Prevail' — in a set of black leather harnesses, studded collars and bondage-inspired stagewear, against a staging of red lighting, industrial props and aggressive, strobing visual effects. Musically the song alternated between Klemens Hannigan's clean, almost balladic sung passages and Matthías Haraldsson's harsh, screamed industrial-techno sections, with a closing refrain sung in layered Icelandic. The performance itself was provocative by Eurovision standards but within the contest's aesthetic bounds. What happened later in the broadcast was not. During the voting segment, as Iceland's points were being announced live on air, members of the group unfurled small scarves in the colours of the Palestinian flag to the camera, holding them up for a few seconds before the broadcast cut away. The gesture, brief but clearly deliberate, violated the EBU's long-standing rule against political statements in the contest. The Icelandic broadcaster RÚV was subsequently reportedly fined by the EBU over the incident, one of the rare instances where such a fine has been publicly acknowledged. Context Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv had been shaped for months by debate over artist boycotts and political visibility around Israel's policies toward Palestinians. The wider geopolitical context included ongoing Israeli-Palestinian tensions around Gaza and the West Bank, the Trump administration's 2017 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and years of BDS movement campaigning for cultural boycott. Hatari had been openly provocative in the run-up to the contest, making satirical anti-capitalist and anti-occupation statements in interviews, even as they insisted on participating rather than boycotting. Their decision to compete and then stage a visible protest during the live broadcast occupied a more complicated position than either straightforward participation or boycott, and was read accordingly as either principled or hypocritical depending on the observer. The EBU's 'apolitical' framing of Eurovision was placed under unusual scrutiny by the episode. Legacy The Hatari incident became the defining reference point for the long-running debate over Eurovision's claim to be non-political. It was cited repeatedly in subsequent years whenever the EBU disciplined artists or broadcasters for political statements — including during the 2024 controversies around Israel's participation in Malmö. For Hatari, the moment elevated them from Icelandic cult act to internationally known provocateurs, though the group paused its main activity shortly afterward. More broadly, it crystallised an unresolved tension at the heart of modern Eurovision: a contest that has always been political in structure and symbolism while officially prohibiting political expression by its participants. Mythology The flag gesture is sometimes remembered as a sustained protest throughout the final; it was in fact brief, occurring during the voting sequence. Hatari are also sometimes described as a straightforwardly anti-Israel act; their public statements at the time were more specifically aimed at the occupation of Palestinian territories and at what they framed as EBU hypocrisy, rather than at Israel's existence.