Jordan Cuts Away to Flowers Rather Than Show Israel Winning

2009

Jordan · 1978 Placement: — · Venue: Palais des Congrès · Host: Paris, France · Type: political statement · Broadcast: color crt On the evening of April 22, 1978, Jordan Television was reportedly broadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest live from Paris to its domestic audience — not as a participating country, but as a re-transmitting observer, as several Middle Eastern and North African broadcasters then did. When it became clear during the voting that Israel's Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta were going to win with 'A-Ba-Ni-Bi,' Jordanian state television reportedly cut away from the Eurovision feed. What replaced the broadcast has since hardened into legend: a still image of flowers — reportedly a vase of daffodils — held on screen while the Israeli entry was crowned champion in Paris. When Jordanian TV returned to regular programming, the network is widely considered to have reported that the Belgian entry, which had in fact finished second, was the actual winner. The flowers-and-false-result combination has become the single most-circulated anecdote about Eurovision and Middle East politics. Context Eurovision 1978 was Israel's third contest and first victory. The Israeli participation had been politically fraught since the country's 1973 debut, with several Arab League broadcasters either refusing to carry the feed or carrying it with interventions. Jordan in 1978 was formally at war with Israel, had not signed a peace treaty, and its state broadcaster operated under Hashemite editorial direction that precluded broadcasting an Israeli victory ceremony without intervention. Legacy The flowers-cutaway is now referenced any time Eurovision and Middle East geopolitics collide — in coverage of the 1979 Jerusalem contest, in the 2019 Tel Aviv debates, and in Israeli-participation controversies in every year since October 2023. It is the founding anecdote for Eurovision's long relationship with broadcasters-who-cut-away-from-Israel, a pattern that continues in various forms across several non-participating nations. Mythology Specific details of the Jordanian broadcast are reportedly documented only via after-the-fact recollection and a small number of contemporaneous press mentions; the vase-of-daffodils specificity may be apocryphal, and primary-source footage of the Jordanian cutaway is not widely considered to have surfaced. The subject dates from 1978; this photograph was taken in 2009.