Israel has turned to Nadav Guedj to represent the small East Mediterranean nation at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. His task will be to qualify from the semi finals for the first time since Harel Skaat in 2010. Israel has tried with a female soloist for the last two years, finishing only 14th in the semi final on both occasions, despite being tipped as certain qualifiers.

Nadav Guedj wins Israeli ticket to Vienna! Tonight 16-year-old Nadav Guedj was chosen to represent Israel in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. The result of the show was decided by the …
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Israel are three time Eurovision Song Contest winners, having been the first country to win the competition outright two years in a row in 1978 and 1979. They last won in 1998 with the world famous Dana International and her international hit song, Diva. Nadav Guedj was not even born when Dana won Israel’s last Eurovision Song Contest title.

He faces an uphill task to pick up votes at the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel has no natural neighbours to vote for her in the competition. Rather than having a large diaspora of support like countries such as Azerbaijan, Greece, Poland and Russia, politically, Jews are more likely to move to Israel from the rest of Europe, than leave Israel to live elsewhere. Her only natural diaspora support tends to come from the UK and France, where the support often cannot vote during the voting window due to religious laws and the use of a telephone on the sabbath.

Israel has often entered the Eurovision Song Contest with songs about peace and love, often with a moderist edge. They have turned to hip hop, dance and indie music as well as duets between Jewish and Arab citizens in a bid to win hearts and minds of the Eurovision voting public, however Israel’s best Eurovision Song Contest results have come from sending strong songs such as the Shiri Maimon ballad ‘The silence that remains” in 2005 (4th place) and Dana’s winning “Diva” entry, a massive club track that topped charts around Europe and the Middle East.