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

Yes I'd agree with that statement.

But I also think that we in the western world are better off with westward focused Israel being dominant in the area than the Islamists like the Palestinians.

Why do people support Ukraine?

Because they prefer westward looking Ukraine over eastern Russia.

We think we have more in common with them.

Why can't the same be true for the Middle East?

I often think about a posts here I saw years ago in one of these Isreal/Palestine threads about a gay man who was all for the Palestinian cause and who went to visit the Gaza strip to show solidarity with them.

He completely changed his outlook when he realized how gay people were treated by Palestinians and how much more welcomed he was in Israel.

We need to support Israel, not the Palestinians.

I doesn't really matter.

I know that tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed.

But if the shoe was on the other foot tens of thousands of Israeli people would be killed.

There are stories of tens of thousands of Iranians being killed by their own government in the space of a few weeks, yet people are now angry that that government is coming under fire, literally.

And as I said I'd prefer Israel to be dominant than Palestine, my opinion.

But all of this is off topic for the thread.

The match will go ahead, people will go and wear Palestinian paraphernalia, there will be protests, the Israeli anthem and players will be booed.

But it won't make a bit of difference and in years to come the people with that Palestinian paraphernalia will be looking back and wondering WTF was I doing.

In a survey, the biggest concerns people had was their own situation. Issues such as cost of living, housing, Health care, mass immigration. Gaza/Israel ranked very low on that list of concerns.

Most people can also be sympathetic to the Palestinians plight but far more concerned about their own lives. Not a difficult concept to grasp really.

Do you watch the news?

You still want to a football match to be a played?

Yes I do watch the news. And funnily enough since 2022 there is a war in Ukraine instigated by Russia and the ban on Russia in sport doesn't seem to have made any difference.

I believe the game should be played because the FAI have obligations to their employees who need their wages being paid, which is heavily linked to the FAI having income. Income which comes from games being played. Its not rocket science.

Yourself and a few others seem to be completely oblivious to the real world. So a question?

If the game was boycotted, are you willing to forsake your own wages in solidarity with the FAI employees who face either not being paid, being made redundant, or being pushed into taking a pay cut?

Brian Kerr was on TV recently criticising the FAI for making workers (football workers as he called him) redundant in late 2025, and now he wants the FAI to boycott 2 games and lose a significant chunk of income. What does Brian think would then happen? More job losses would be inevitable.

The FAI took a stand and got no support from the 50 odd other associations around UEFA.

The away game will be in Hungary. Cannot see it happening in Israel

Its a lot easier for a state to support the SA case then for essentially small entities such as football associations to do likewise as they are heavily dependent on games for income.

I think the match should go ahead but I can understand people thinking it shouldn't its down to opinions. One thing is Isreal wouldn't be conducting this war without America funding it. The Americans are just as complicit as Isreal so we should be boycotting America aswell but that wont happen will it.

For me, this reminds me a bit of the Skort debate last year.

People who had zero interest in Camogie, and had never done anything to help or support the game, weighing in and telling the game what they should do and judging the people who run it.

This decision is for the FAI to make.

If people want to make personal sacrifices to make a political statement thats entirely reasonable.

But if your protest amounts to saying 'well I dont like this, but I think someone else should make the sacrifices and I'm not really making any sacrifices myself' - no, I don't really agree with that.

It's a possibility that we could be overtaken by events. There are already rumours that the FIFA World Cup is by no means 100% certain to go ahead this summer, given events in the Middle East. Very unclear where we might be in the autumn re. this fixture what with Israel going full on into warmongering / destructive mode.

No, not that the US itself will be unsafe, just that the general geopolitical situation may have changed and threats of boycotts etc. Not generally remembered that 65 nations completely boycotted the 1980 Olympics, it was a shadow of the event it was supposed to be.