Noam Bettan Rehearses With Booing Before Vienna Final — Israel News

Noam Bettan has spent the past several months rehearsing for israel news with sounds meant to interrupt him, building toward his Eurovision final performance in Vienna on Saturday. The 28-year-old Israeli artist said the aim was to stay unflappable without turning the performance robotic.

Bettan is expected to sing “Michelle” in the final. His semifinal on Tuesday brought some booing, a “Free Palestine” heckle and a person in the crowd shouting “Stop the Genocide” at the start of the performance, while four people were removed for alleged disruptive behavior.

Vienna and the booing issue

Israeli performers have faced protest-driven disruption at Eurovision since October 7, 2023, when Israel’s war in Gaza began. Eden Golan was met with swells of boos in Malmo in 2024, and Yuval Raphael faced boos and “Free Palestine” chants during her second-place Eurovision performance of “New Day Will Rise” in Basel last year.

Security also became part of that experience. Two would-be attackers rushed the stage at the end of Raphael’s performance before being intercepted by security, and a crew member was hit with paint that appeared to be bound for Raphael.

ORF skips anti-booing technology

Austrian broadcaster ORF decided not to officially employ anti-booing technology for home viewers in Vienna this year. Vienna last hosted Eurovision eleven years ago, when the broadcast used that technology to replace boos with artificial cheers during Russian singer Polina Gagarina’s performance the year after war broke out in eastern Ukraine.

Bettan later said in a video that he employed his own anti-booing technology, but the semifinal still brought the crowd reactions he had been rehearsing against for months. That leaves the final with a familiar test: whether Israeli performers can deliver their songs while the audience around them tries to turn the show into a political protest.