Israel fails for a fifth year in a row

by Itamar Barak 158 views

2004 marks the 5th year in a row that Israeli broadcaster IBA fails to bring home any kind of success in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Israel's entrant to Eurovision, David D'Or only reached the 12th position in last night's semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest gaining 57 points. This means Israel is now facing relegation from Saturday's final and a participation in the semi-final of the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest.

“We are very disappointed, we did believe in this song”, said Ofer Menachem, PR manager of David D'Or's record company. “The results of the semi-final are not very surprising since most of the qualifiers do deserve the final, but I think our performance was also worthy of qualifying”. When France and Russia declared a few weeks ago they would not broadcast the semi-final and give their votes in it, a lot of Israelis feared that this would mean a relegation from the final, as these two countries traditionaly vote for Israel with high numbers. Last night after the results were casted, these fears came true making a lot of Israelis even more disappointed, since Israel won 57 points, and probably only a few points away from the top 10 list of the semi-final.