The Eurovision Song Competition semi-finals begin May 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, climaxing with finals May 26th. And the world should be watching, because Azerbaijan, which shares an open border with Iran, is believed to have opened access to airbases in the secular Moslem nation to Israel, with whom they have a relationship, according to Foreign Policy:

Four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official told me in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

The report of Israel using airbases in Azerbaijan for war planes is discounted by Israel’s Haaretz, citing a number of logistical issues that make the use of the Azeri airfields impractical as launching grounds for F-15 fighter planes:

[T]hey fail to address the problem of where the Israeli warplanes can fly to once they have refueled in Azerbaijan. There is no friendly route to fly back to Israel, except over Iranian or Turkish territory, hardly appealing alternatives once an attack has already been carried out and both countries will be on highest alert…

Since landing in Azerbaijan after a strike on Iran would almost certainly mean that returning these valuable aircraft to Israel would be a lengthy and complicated process, especially at a time when the IAF [Israeli Air Force] would certainly need them for additional missions, this doesn’t seem to make sense. Other uses proposed in the FP feature, using Azeri fields just in the case of emergency landings or using them to base search-and-rescue helicopters or reconnaissance drones, makes more sense.

As part of the European Broadcasting Union, Israel is a participant in Eurovision, despite the contest’s May 26 final falling on Shavuot, an Israeli holiday, which commemorates God giving the Torah to the Jews. (Shavuot is celebrated seven weeks after the second day of Passover). Israel’s entry Izabo will perform on the May 22 semi-final.

Now in its 57th year, Eurovision is held among the active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) or members of the Council of Europe. Each member country submits a song which is voted on by other countries, and the winner hosts the next year’s contest, providing a chance to promote their nation. Eurovision is such a huge deal that in 2005, host country the Ukraine waived their visa requirements for the summer. This year, 75-year old Englebert Humperdink will be representing for the UK, and Russia has a team of grannies from Urals performing their entry. Sadly this year Armenia withdrew from the competition over tension with Azerbiajan stemming from the 1990s war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which killed over 25,000.

Regarding the mounting Israeli/Iranian tension, Haaretz adds:

Meanwhile, it may turn out that the only Israeli attack through Azerbaijan this year will be psychedelic punk-rock band Izabo since according to Haaretz’s senior columnist, Amir Oren, Tuesday night’s announcement that the U.S. Defense Department would be seeking funding for further development of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, was a signal that there would be no Israeli strike on Iran this year.

But if for some reason Izabo cancels, duck and cover.

A Lebanese bellydancer’s performance with an Israeli heavy metal band  at Hellfest in Clisson, France has stirred controversy. Johanna Fakhry’s gesture of holding her country’s flag alongside the Israeli flag carried by Orphaned Land’s lead singer Kobi Fahri has been both praised and decried. Before Fahkry joined the band on stage Fahri said

Music is the best religion in the world

On TheObservers, Ziad Feghali, a Lebanese video game designer, wrote:

I find this kind of initiative totally absurd. Clearly the dancer involved has no idea what it is like to live in Lebanon today [Johanna Fakhry is based in Paris]. We hear the drums of beating from Israel every day. It is pointless to fly our flags together, that only adds fuel to a constantly burning fire.

Under Lebanese law, it is illegal for a Lebanese citizen to have any form of public dealing with Israelis, because we are technically still at war. If Fakhry were a higher-profile dancer or lived in Lebanon, she would probably get into trouble with authorities. And she would certainly get into trouble with her neighbours – the vast majority of Lebanese feel angered and betrayed by her kind of behaviour.

I don’t see how anything good could come from this. There is a path for peace, but this is not a step in the right direction. Real, useful steps would be Israeli leaders around the negotiating table willing to acknowledge – and compensate for – all the lives lost, the human suffering, the damage done.

Roi Ben Yehuda, a New York-based Israeli writer and blogger, posted both Johanna Fahkry and Orphaned Land frontman Kobi Fahri’s response to their critics. Johanna Fakhry wrote in part:

…First of all, I know that politics, religion or other matters, moreover foreign ones, don’t hold an important place in a festival, but music is a tool for expression, and has to bring messages, history and legacy. This way, I wanted to take this opportunity so rare in history – witnessing on stage an Israeli group and a Lebanese dancer – to say that beyond the artistic exchange and our collaboration for the love of art, we were willing to make it a symbol of Peace. And these two flags that we held as high as the fist can rise, transcends all these years of war and suffering.

We both experimented, endured the vicissitude of this neverending war. But we belong to this new generation – those who behold far the horizon, who open the boundaries. Because the future dwells in metissage and solidarity between men.

Our opinions might separate us, but our fears are binding us together; our Art entwines us, just like metal music….I’d say that we are the promise of the future.

We are not the messengers, just the Hand.

Make this world a better place and spread this message of Peace and Unity.

Kobi Fahri wrote:

…. For me, Johanna is the pure symbol of hope, courage and belief. At first I was afraid that waving both Israel and Lebanon’s flags will cause a huge criticism towards Johanna and I shared with her those fears, yet she insisted that we shall do it and you know why? Not because she supports the governments of our countries, nor the actions of wars we had in the past. But it’s because we hope to end this never ending circle of wars, to create a dialog, understanding, friendship, brotherhood; to create a better world for children who lives in this Orphaned Lands. The past and history are just too bloody & tragic….

 

Elvis Costello has canceled his two concert dates in Israel June 30 and July 1 to protest the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. On his website, Costello wrote: