Israel – Ma’ariv, one of Israel’s biggest newspapers reports today that the 1998 Eurovision winner Dana International will compete in this year’s Israeli national final for the Eurovision Song Contest. Tomorrow, the Eurovision comitee of the Israeli broadcaster IBA will disclose all participants of their national final. The transsexual Dana International had been runner-up in the 1995 Israeli national final and co-wrote the entry for Boaz Mauda in 2008 (“The fire in your eyes”). She had stated once, that should Eurovision be held in Germany, she would try to represent Israel again. I do not think I have to elaborate on why the relationship between Germany and Israel is quite special.
This is Dana’s winning entry “Diva”:
Sources: Ma’vari, ESCToday
The Eurovision Times 
1998 was a very strong year. It’s hard to rank those songs. Anyway, Israel 98 is far from being one of the songs that I love. It’s vaguley annoying and her vocals are not very good. There were definitely much better entries on offer. That said, I am eager to hear her song. Good luck.
I hope she is chosen. I love her work and I can’t wait to hear new song(s). Hope she sings in Hebrew, it suits her much better than English.
And finally after many many years the twelve points from Italy goeeeeeeeeeeeeeees to:
ISRAEL!
i was to young to remember 98 eurovision as im only 19 but i have herd the song on u tube and the start of the song sounds a bit like the theme from who wants to be a million air lol but it a decent song i gess i just hope she will come up with a great dance tune x
1998 contest was the topic of one of my favorite shows. ;)
Love it! Thanks for posting this ;)
Dana stay out of esc and do the rounds of esc season appearing on shows as a former winner.Remember what happend to the winners of 93/99 for example.It’s good when past winners come back but you need an excellent song to win twice or come in top 5.93/99 winners had bad results(unjust) and must have been so disapointed.After winning ABBA as singers did not come back and in 1986 Bucks Fizz were asked by BBC to sing again for uk but said they would rather be remembered as esc winners not losers and as Cheryl Baker said -once you have won there is no higher you can go. Brotherhood of man were going to try in 82 but pulled out and said very much the same.
What about Johnny Logan and Carola? Would Logan be invited to so many national finals e.t.c same for Niamh if she hadn’T taken part in 2010 we would not know anything about her…
And I think Lena might proof this year that coming back as a winner does not have to be a bad thing…
AND: I like the idea of a transvestite representing Israel in Germany ^^
i thought she was a transexual?
oops. sorry. I was too quick ;9
Pamela, Italy never gave 12 points to Israel… The highest mark was 10 in 1976. That would be first time.
That’s interesting. I have to agree that former winners returning can not repeat their previous success and be disappointed. 1993 and 1999 winners prove it the best. It’s also true with former Top 5 placers, like Chiara (the 3rd time), Edsilia, Selma, Ilanit, Eddie Butler, Fabrizio Faniello, and list goes on. There were only few artists that returned in recent years and were able to overcome the jinx, like Anna Vissi, Carola, Elena Paparizou, Sakis Rouvas, Dima Bilan. Let’s hear the song and see if Dana has any chance.
I forgot about Thomas Forstner from Austria – the best example: 5th in 1989 and last with no points in 1991.
I am really very curious about hearing the Italian votes in May. Italy has never voted in the televoting era. Of course, there are a lot of Ukrainians, Albanians and Romanians living there but will people in South Tyrol massivly vote for Austria or even Germany?
I hope that the votes won’t be that predictable. When it comes to voting in ESC, Finland, Malta and Slovakia are my favourite countries because you never know where their top marks will go to.
finland loves france (oh the so many 12 to our daring 90s songs were great)
malta loves schlager (charlotte, switzerland six…)
slovakia is the one i dont get lol
ps : on topic, i hate dana’s singings if one can say singing, “diva” is very very very dated, it was a big club song of the 90s, perfect on its time and nowadays terrible, when uk and nl had songs that still today have a certain appeal, even if France was the true modern song of them all… finland and slovakia, as usual (since we’re already talking about them) were underrated
But in recent years Finland gave top points to Hungary and Serbia (2007), Russia and Norway (2008), Iceland and Estonia (2009) and Israel and Germany (2010). That is rather diverse and unbiased voting imo.
And Malta gave 10 to Belgium last year.
Finland never really voted unfairly to its neighors that’s always very welcomed but Estonia did recieve a lot of unfair points so i guess that’s their most loved neighbour. still, what they seem to like is either refined entries (Hungary, Serbia 07, Estonia 2009, Israel 2010) or the big fat dance number…
Malta had juries finally lol