Israel participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, having internally selected Eden Alene as their representative. She was due to compete in the 2020 contest with "" before the event's cancellation. Her entry for 2021, "Set Me Free", was chosen during the national selection competition ("Our Song for Eurovision") organised by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC/).
Background
Prior to the 2021 contest, Israel had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest forty-two times since its first entry in 1973.
Israel has won the contest on four occasions: in 1978 with the song "" performed by Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta, in 1979 with the song "" performed by Milk and Honey, in 1998 with the song "" performed by Dana International and in 2018 with the song "Toy" performed by Netta Barzilai.
Since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Israel has failed to reach the final six times. In , Shiri Maimon gave the country its tenth top five result, finishing fourth. Having failed to qualify for the final for four consecutive years (2011–14), Israel reached the final for the first time in five years, with Nadav Guedj finishing ninth in , and the country has participated in the final every year since. Israel's fourth victory came when Netta won the contest in Lisbon, with the song "Toy". , when the contest was held in Tel Aviv, Kobi Marimi represented the country on home soil with the song "Home", finishing twenty-third with 35 points in the final.
Before Eurovision
Artist selection
On 22 March 2020, confirmed that Eden Alene would be kept as the Israeli representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2021, and in December 2020, it was revealed that the song that Alene would represent Israel with in Rotterdam for 2021 would be selected through a national final called ("Our Song for Eurovision").
HaShir Shelanu L'Eurovizion
On 16 September 2020, opened the public song submission following the announcement of Alene as the selected artist with the deadline on 15 October 2020. 220 submissions were received, which were subsequently evaluated by a professional committee consisting of Ofri Gopher (Director of Music Stations), Roi Dalmadigo (Editor of Gimel), Tal Argaman (DJ and music editor at ), Alona Kedem (Editor of and Kan Gimel), Tali Katz (Head of Delegation for Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest) and Michael Weisberg (CEO of Aroma Music) that selected nine songs for the competition.
After previous reports that the national final would consist of three live shows of 4 songs each, it was revealed the winning song would be selected over two rounds of online voting through Kan's official website. In the first round, demo versions of the nine competing songs were released on 2 December 2020 and the public was able to vote until 13 December 2020. The two songs with the most votes advanced to the second round and the professional committee selected an additional song from the remaining seven to advance. In the second round, the three songs, finalized and re-recorded by Alene, were to be released on 18 January 2021, however the songs were officially released on 5 January 2021 after an early publication by the newspaper . The public was able to vote for their favourite song between 19 January and 25 January 2021, and the winning song was revealed during a special televised broadcast on 25 January 2021 from the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, hosted by Lucy Ayoub.
At Eurovision
According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete in the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. For the 2021 contest, the semi-final allocation draw held for 2020 which was held on 28 January 2020, was used. Israel was placed into the first semi-final, which was held on 18 May 2021, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.
Semi-final
Once all the competing songs for the 2021 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Israel was set to perform in position 12, following the entry from Belgium and preceding the entry from Romania.