ON a freezing cold Saturday night Dublin footballers won their first league game of the year against Monaghan. In post-game interviews team members refused to be filmed beside the hoarding of the League’s sponsors Allianz due to that company’s strong links to the Israeli state. Simple but determinative moments like this tell us where the people of Ireland stand on gross human rights violations, and crimes against humanity. That GAA officialdom is not listening to this is as instructive as it is shameful.
It is eight years since Senator Frances Black proposed the Occupied Territories Bill, which would make it an offence “for a person to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory”. Despite a flurry of activity before the last general election when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael warmed their cold shoulders to the Bill, it is currently languishing at the Department of Foreign Affairs as Attorney General advice on the legislation is awaited. It is almost like government parties are spooked by a commentariat suggesting our nation’s conscience can be dictated by Israeli-backed threats to foreign investments.
When the Republic of Ireland football team was drawn against Israel in the UEFA Nations League many people’s hearts sank. It was only last November when a vote within the FAI was 93 per cent in favour of submitting a motion to UEFA calling for the banning of Israel from the competition. The current contradiction is obvious.
However, Micheál Martin’s blind and speedy acceptance that the fixtures need to go ahead was breathtaking. The FAI saying that they would go ahead was indicative of an organisation that yet again moves outside of, and despite, the long-suffering supporters who have kept it going.
By contrast, Daniel Lambert shines clear daylight on the utter depravity that letting this fixture go ahead would be. The Bohemians Football Club Chief Commercial Officer and Kneecap manager was like a hare out of a trap highlighting how dangerous it is for a nation to recognise the apartheid regime and genocidal actions of Israel and then ask all of us to give legitimacy to a football team that trains on occupied land. He asked if the government is truly going to ask “the young people of Ireland to put humanity aside and support a dictatorship”. It would appear they are.
There is some suggestion that a 'neutral' venue outside of Dublin could be found for the home fixture. An idea that is as debased as it is absurd. It is not Lansdowne Road that legitimises the Israeli state. Lining out and playing anthems will not drown out the sound of IDF tanks rolling over an unknown number of children's bodies. Neither will cheering “Come on you Boys in Green” while in the stands opposite are the supporters of a state which benefits from impunity for the deliberate destruction of every Palestinian hospital, school and playing field. You can move the fixture wherever you want but you will never escape the screams of the last dying member of another full Palestinian family.
The human imperative in this time is to side with humanity itself. Playing this fixture would condemn every young player to history’s enmity. They deserve defence from that. But more, the Palestinian people deserve defence from every attempt to legitimise the state that wishes to eliminate them.
