The Israeli Song Festival, which was a very popular event in Israel during the 60's and 70's and was also successfully used as the country's Eurovision pre-selection, is about to return at the end of this year.

The decision to use the song festival as the country's Eurovision pre-selection was first taken in 1978 and was proven successful: the winner of that festival, Abanibi performed by Yizhar Cohen and the Alphabeta group went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest in Paris. A year later the festival's winner, Halleluja by Gali Atari & Milk and Honey also won the Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem, and became one of the most familiar Eurovision songs. The 1980's saw the demise of the Israeli Song Festival, as the Israeli broadcaster IBA replaced it with the Kdam-Eurovision.

This year, the commercial Channel 2 will revive the Israeli Song Festival, probably on December 29th. 8-10 original songs will compete to win the first prize. Some Eurovision fans have now started speculating on the chances that the IBA and Channel 2 will cooperate to send the festival's winner to Eurovision, since the festival's date is just in the ideal time of year, when in comes to Eurovision terms. Despite that, the possible cooperation between the two channels in this matter seems to still be far from reality, as they are envious to each other.