Push the Button!

The Times has a story today about Israel's Eurovision contest entry (Wiki-entry), a song titled "Push the Button" by the punk/rock/rap band Teapacks (listen here.) The Jerusalem Post also has an excellent article on the same subject. The bottom line is that this year's organizers of Europe's most important televised musical event arer considering a ban on the song. Why? Because of its allegedly "inappropriate" message. The song mentions crazy rulers who are interested in pushing the button, and is thus a general warning about nuclear warfare. Some have read it as an attack on the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad. Even if the latter is true, why do the Finnish hosts feel that it is inappropriate? As far as I know, the Eurovision contest has no requirement that the songs be controversy-free. In fact, this is a perfect example of what I wrote last week, namely that there is a significant distinction between simply offending certain individuals in the contemporary world, especially when the attack in question carries important substantive meaning, and depicting/offending persons who are held to be sacred in a particular religion. If friends of the Iranian president have written in voicing their protest, that is their right. But there is no basis for the Finnish hosts arbitrarily excluding the song simply because it might draw some heat. Moreover, decisions like this only serve the interests of those who want to lump any criticism of Israel into the same category as being anti-Jewish and/or denying the Holocaust. Shame on the Finnish for censoring this speech.