Tunisia and Lebanon tried to participate in 1977 and 2005 respectively (the latter even selected Aline Lahoud as their representative), but their participations were ultimately thrown out the window once they found out that Israel was there.
Morocco actually did participate in 1980, when Israel left after literally winning the second year in a row. Morocco never returned, even after recognizing Israel, and even in the later years when Israel was absent.
Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and the Vatican City all can participate since they have broadcasters that are a part of the EBU, but they choose not to, mostly due to Israel participating, which half of these countries don’t recognize. Also who would the Vatican even send to Eurovision, one of their Cardinals? Oh yeah, Kazakhstan, an EBU associate, even participated in Junior Eurovision, but never in the adult contest. They are in the running for a special invitation though, whether it actually happens is something only time will tell.
Countries are finally speaking up about this, I’ve been waiting for like, 2 years already.
Israel has undeniably brought the contest into disrepute twice in a row with them sending basically political entries with shady ad campaigns that made a select few voters disproportionately vote for Israel, causing them to spike up in the ranking (almost winning the 2025 contest; JJ is our savior), and yet the EBU just doesn’t even care about this? And when Russia did the whole “let’s take all of Ukraine” move, it took 10 countries to immediately speak up for them to get suspended. Ukraine won that year btw. Like… if the EBU are gonna keep saying the Eurovision Song Contest is “apolitical”, then they have to accept the harsh reality that making your participants be countries immediately makes it otherwise. And this is not the exception, it’s the norm. Both the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup have had similar disrepute incidents in the past, most notably with apartheid South Africa.
Either way, if more countries drop out due to Israel’s continued participate, that could ultimately result in enough awareness for the EBU to finally kick them out for good. Otherwise, the only solution is the privatization of their broadcaster, which literally nobody wants.