Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to Israel's win in the Eurovision song contest by doing a brief "chicken dance" as he headed into the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
Netanyahu opened the meeting, which was held in the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, by saying "Boker toy" ("Toy morning") rather than "Boker tov" ("Good morning"), referring to winning singer Netta Barzilai's song "Toy."
"Toy morning. A very good morning," Netanyahu said. "These days Jerusalem is being blessed with many gifts. We received another one last night with Netta's thrilling and suspenseful victory. The gift is that Eurovision will come to Jerusalem next year. We will be very proud to host it. I think that we will deal with everything involved in order to enable another major event with a large international audience to be held in our city, in our country."
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday after Barzilai was announced the winner in Lisbon. Her win in the glitzy pageant, which was watched by over 200 million people around the world, is Israel's fourth since it began participating in 1973 and its first since 1998. The win means Israel will host the event next year.
