For the second year in a row, Israel finished in second place at the Eurovision Song Contest. But the paths it took with Noam Bettan’s “Michelle” this year, and Yuval Raphael’s “New Day Will Rise” last year, were markedly different.

Saturday night’s achievement came after months of speculation, hand-wringing, allegations, and reforms surrounding the Eurovision voting process. Which begs the questions: How did Israel actually fare in the voting breakdown, and did the changes introduced this year affect the outcome?

Israel still did notably well in the voting from the public, coming in third place in the televote. But, bucking predictions, it was actually the jury votes that pushed Bettan to a second-place finish, after he picked up support from the majority of the professional panels at the grand final.

All 35 countries taking part in the Eurovision select a seven-member jury made up of music professionals, who each rank every performance, are instructed to vote solely based on artistic merit, and are forbidden from discussing or coordinating their votes with each other. Enforcement of those rules, of course, is largely impossible.

The European Broadcasting Union appeared to want the juries to have a cooling effect on the more volatile popular vote — bringing them back this year in the semifinal rounds after they were scrapped in 2023. But when it came to support for Israel, Bettan appeared to win over many on the juries with his smooth vocals, solid performance, and unwavering stage presence.

Last year, Raphael received only 60 votes from the juries, coming in a middling 14th, but she topped the televote to send Israel soaring to second overall. This year, Bettan received 123 points from the professional panels, putting Israel in eighth place after he received at least some jury points from 22 of the 34 voting countries. Last year, Raphael got jury points from only 14 of the 36 nations.

While the Eurovision odds this year were resoundingly inaccurate (and have been wrong on the winner for three years running), they notably predicted Israel would finish only 16th in the jury vote but first in the televote. In addition, most Eurovision analysts predicted a low jury vote for Israel, simply because another runaway televote was expected, and avoiding an uncomfortable Israel win was seen as the ideal outcome for all involved.

So........

© The Times of Israel