Last February, Ireland was drawn to play against Israel in the Nations League, along with Austria and Kosovo. Initially, the FAI, the government, and the Gardaí backed the home game – scheduled for 4 October – to be played in Dublin. But it has now been moved to a so-called neutral venue in Serbia, with the away fixture in Hungary set for 27 September.
Of course, any country hosting Israel while it commits live-streamed genocide against the Palestinian people is not neutral. When announcing the move of the home fixture from Dublin, the FAI cited praise from the Palestinian Football Association for its solidarity. However, the PFA subsequently made clear that it does not endorse the FAI's decision, or any efforts to sportswash apartheid Israel.
On the 8th of July, an FAI EGM took place to vote on the board’s own motion to endorse playing the Israel matches. This was a unique opportunity to take leadership against injustice and sportswashing – as Ireland did in the face of South African apartheid. It was a chance to reflect the will of the majority of the football community and the broader public to be on the right side of history.
Disappointingly, the motion passed, confirming the FAI’s position that the fixtures should go ahead. This decision reveals a lack of moral courage by the FAI and a missed opportunity to show real leadership to the other nations in UEFA and FIFA. Yet this result will not deter the nationwide campaign to stop the games.
No normalisation of genocide
It is crucial to recognise that the campaign for these games not to be played is rooted in the longstanding call from Palestinian civil society for a sporting boycott of that state. For over two decades, the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement has campaigned for a consumer, academic, cultural, and sporting boycott of Israel. Over that time there have been major successes as complicit corporations have divested from Israeli apartheid and thousands of cultural and sporting workers all over the world have endorsed and heeded the call not to cross the Palestinian picket line. This is what is being demanded of the FAI.
The narrative we are pervasively fed is that sport and politics do not mix, but this is patently untrue. As it does with cultural activity, Israel uses sport to normalise itself, and thereby, its crimes against Palestinians. Being allowed on any world stage, be it Eurovision or international football, sends the message that Israel is a normal state, rather than one committing the crimes of genocide and apartheid. By extension, playing Israel is an inherently political act because it functions to sportswash its crimes.
Since October 2023 Israel has murdered at least 73,000 people in Gaza, with thousands more missing under the rubble. To add to these atrocities, thousands of Palestinians have been incarcerated in Israel’s torture dungeons. In the West Bank, Israel has also killed over 1,000 Palestinians since October 2023 while ethnically cleansing thousands and stealing ever more land. Since the so-called ceasefire in Gaza, Israel has killed over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, bombing the territory on a daily basis. All while keeping Gaza under an illegal, medieval siege which denies the people there all basic human rights from clean water to healthcare.
Over the course of this period, Israel has murdered over 1,000 Palestinian sportspeople. More than half of these are footballers – most prominent among them the ‘Palestinian Pelé’ Suleiman Obeid, shot dead while trying to obtain food for his own children. In 2016 and 2017, Gaza Kids to Ireland brought children from Al Helal Football Academy here to play against their peers. They were welcomed with open arms by solidarity groups, local teams and League of Ireland clubs, and met then-President Michael D Higgins both years. They charmed everyone.
One of those children, Muhammad Khalifa, a Palestine National Youth Team player, was murdered along with his family by Israel in December 2024, aged just 20 years old. He is one reason why the FAI must not play Israel. Of course there are so many more, including the thousands of people whose limbs Israel has stolen, creating the biggest cohort of child amputees in history.
This June the United Nations released a report documenting Israel’s continuing genocide and other atrocity crimes, specifically the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children. It documents heinous crimes against children, such as a 10-day old baby shot in the head by a quadcopter-mounted rifle while being breastfed inside a tent in Nuseirat Camp in Gaza.
Complicity and resistance
The reason Israel can commit such crimes is the culture of impunity that our government is part of by refusing to sanction it. Western governments have funded, armed and given political cover to Israel even as it commits genocide. That is why the boycott movement is so important. When institutions and governments not only fail to act but in fact are complicit, civil society leads the way in imposing a cost on Israel. The FAI boycotting the games would have sent a powerful message that there can be no business as usual with a state committing genocide.
While the FAI’s stance is disappointing, they were given the lead by our own government, who insisted the matches should go ahead. Both Sports Minister Patrick O’Donovan and Junior Minister for Sport Charlie McConalogue announced they wouldn't attend the Ireland V Israel match in October when it was still scheduled for Dublin. This begs the question: if they would not attend, why did they think the game should go ahead? This mixed messaging is typical of a government that says some of the right things on Palestine but refuses to take any meaningful action or to end its own complicity.
Shamefully UEFA and FIFA have also refused to sanction Israel. It is therefore the responsibility of the Irish government to support the FAI in pulling out of the games. It should not be left to the manager and players to answer to this. Majority opinion in the football community, the Professional Footballers’ Association, and the broader public is for cancellation of the fixtures. The government and the FAI should reflect that.
Whatever the FAI’s decision, pressure continues to build against the holding of the games. Solidarity groups have leafleted at League of Ireland matches around the country. Among them is the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), of which I am proud to be the chairperson. The IPSC has held protests at the Dáil and Department of Sport. League of Ireland grassroots fans held a tennis ball protest at the Ireland v Qatar match in May which had to be stopped twice. The Stop the Game Campaign has issued a legal pre-action letter via Phoenix Law against the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), Sport Ireland, the Minister for Sport, and the Minister for Justice. Stop the Game banners are to be seen at protests and events all over the island. The trade union movement is in full solidarity with the Palestinian call not to cross its picket line, with ICTU, SIPTU and Unite the Union calling on the FAI to boycott the games. Sports media coverage has been very strong with none of the equivocation or fake balance present in general mainstream reporting. This has been the case from campaigns about the women's basketball games against Israel to calls for the GAA to drop Allianz sponsorship.
While the FAI board vote did not lead to the cancellation of the games, the initiative came from within the organisation’s own ranks. FAI grassroots – like the vast majority of people in this country – are appalled at the crimes Israel has carried out against the Palestinian people. The struggle for their rights will go on until Palestine is free.
Zoë Lawlor is the chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.