Ireland vs Israel - To play or not to play, that is the question Read OP for Mod Warning

Personally I lean towards preferring if Ireland refused to play. Broadly speaking I've agreed with our position as a country in calling out Israel (at the same time we could have gone further) and I've been proud of the general motivation in the country of the public advocating strongly for Palestine.

But right now, I also I can understand if they do play, financially, they need every game they can play and UEFA wouldn't react positively to Ireland if they do refuse to play. And it would draw the ire of a what is a vindictive administration in the US which as a country, spends a lot of its time picking fights on behalf of Israel. If the FAI did decide to boycott (because of Israeli escalation etc) I would absolutely support them and would be proud of them making such a decision.

If they do play, I would hope that the Irish supporters would use it as an opportunity to protest very very loudly about Israel's actions and look to make this a visual protest as well as an audible one as much as possible irrespective of calls to not show flags etc. I know UEFA would act in respect of that also, but it would be less damaging than not fulfilling a fixture I feel.

A lot of this is true.

But it's also true that there are different events which resonate differently within a country (including Ireland) for different reasons.

And the actions of US/UK etc didn't lead them to being banned, or facing any sanction whatsoever from sporting organisations in the same way that Russia and Belarus have done.

The topic of Palestine resonates within Ireland for particular reasons, that's just a plain fact. If we don't act or allow such sentiment to develop because there other events occurred somewhere else in the world then we'd never have public sentiment about anything again.

In the same way, as individuals, some stories hit us more than others for some reason. It doesn't mean we are pleased or giving tacit approval for the misdeeds against one person, while supporting another. That's just life. It's similar in this respect I feel.

I didn't say that it is a matter of priority, but it is absolutely the case that it resonates with a lot of people.

Particularly in 2024 and 2025 there were frequent very well attended protests in most cities and many towns across the country.

I wouldn't be against this approach. Play it, but beat them definitively (like Norway did when there was similar conversation) would be a good outcome..

In an ideal world, I would favour not playing, but this isn't an ideal world.