The Ireland team were faced with a moral dilemma as they debated back and forth about whether to oppose a genocidal nation on the football pitch. There were obviously many considerations, and by all accounts, there was intense pressure. Not just from a rightly appalled observing Irish population, but from agents making threats. Telling players they would never play for a US-owned team if they went ahead with a boycott.

There are many complex issues in modern life. Shades of grey colour our decision-making, the reactions of those who influence us, and to whom we may ultimately answer. It is very rare to come across an issue so utterly horrifying, so undeniable (except by the usual propagandists and their acolytes) and soul-destroying, yet so very widely unifying.

Despite the blizzard of bots, a weaponised hasbara campaign (both on and offline) of propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, gaslighting, deflection and most of all endless and countless lies, no event has happened in my lifetime that the vast majority of people have found so upsetting and deeply, relentlessly disturbing. Watching this slaughter unfold has been aggressively chipping away at our hope for humanity in general, our belief in ‘civilised’ society, our own decency, and our very souls.

The number of daily war crimes and atrocities has been countless, and the horror heaped upon horror has been nearly impossible to watch. I can’t imagine for a second what it’s been like to live through. The survivors will be traumatised for their own lifetimes, and I have no doubt it will be generational.

I mention all of this because for me, and many of you, we have seldom known such widely felt moral clarity. The level of outrage and disgust built up over years of previously unimaginable butchery has caused most decent folk with a shred of empathy to understand that this fascist, Zionist, apartheid ethno-state must be opposed, isolated and stopped, no matter what relatively petty sacrifices are necessary.

We know that the sport and cultural boycott was massively damaging for the South African apartheid regime, especially because the Afrikaners had so much of their national identity tied up with their beloved Springboks. I don’t know if a similar boycott would be as damaging to Israelis, especially given that their national sport appears to be sniping small children in the head, indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals, critical civilian infrastructure and civilian populations. They’re sort of a murder for entertainment society at this point.

You would have thought, especially after the immediate expulsion of Russia from UEFA competitions following the Ukraine invasion, that banning Israel would have been inevitable and definitive. Any other decision exposing the rank hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of UEFA. Yet here we are, three years on, still being forced to confront the national and club football teams of a genocidal nation and, by doing so, UEFA choose normalisation of a slaughter to which we have all been forced to bear witness.

Don’t forget though, that the wrong flags showing support for the oppressed and massacred are unacceptable. Resulting in hefty fines because we can’t have ‘politics’ in football. Yet allowing a rogue genocidal nation to continue playing international/club football is absolutely fine and dandy!

Israel fans and supporters of Israeli clubs have made their opposition to politics in football clear, with innumerable disgustingly racist, murderous, threatening and genocide supporting chants, not to mention violence and mayhem.

Is your personal favourite the one where they have a good old laugh about having murdered all the children in Gaza? That’s a catchy one, isn’t it?  Or maybe just the bog-standard racist abuse meted out to the likes of Adam Idah and conveniently ignored. They have been given an inch of acquiescence, and they have taken a mile of triumphalist supremacy and coerced desensitisation.

The continued pretence that this one-sided wholesale slaughter, ethnic cleansing and forced humanitarian disaster is somehow political, is as transparently nonsensical as it is shameful.

Should the Irish players (Liam Scales included, although he played no part in the game) be criticised for deciding not to boycott? They were left as the last men standing, after countless compromised and corrupt cowards failed to lead the way. Israel is a pariah nation and should be banned by FIFA and UEFA. They are in breach of countless rules of those organisations.

The Irish government then also failed to intercede, as did the FAI. These are all institutions with a variety of agendas and areas of self-interest. The one thing this genocide has taught us is that ‘civilised’ society is an illusion. Governments and institutions will only do the right thing if it aligns with their vested interests, somehow benefits them, and certainly doesn’t threaten their investments, income, or grip on power.

When faced with this level of dysfunction, cronyism, corruption, institutional hypocrisy and paralysis, it often falls to the grassroots to take a stand. When change from the top down is impossible, then change must come from the bottom up. It is individuals on the ground who must dissent, protest, and refuse to accept the unacceptable.

The Irish men had the opportunity to put the first nail in the coffin of Zionist normalisation. To encourage other nations to stand their ground and demand change by vehemently opposing the arrayed ranks of contemptible cowards, genocide enablers, supporters and perpetrators.

The Irish stand on the shoulders of giants. Those who faced overwhelming odds to defeat an imperialist oppressor, who had imposed genocide upon them and changed the face of a nation. A population left to die in ditches with grass stains on their mouths. Starvation was also used as a means of mass murder in this current genocide.

The sanctity of life. Surprisingly to some, that includes Palestinian life. Equal rights, human dignity, refusal to rubber-stamp a slaughter, or three points in the Nations League? With one notable and noble exception, these men made their choice.

It’s a choice that may haunt them for a lifetime.

I believe it should.

I leave the last word to Amnesty International –

“It’s unconscionable that the Israel men’s football team will participate in the UEFA Nations League this autumn despite clear evidence that Israel’s football association continues to support illegal settlements.

“Instead of sending a clear message that there is a cost for Israel’s unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and its atrocity crimes against Palestinians, UEFA is giving Israel an international stage as it maintains its brutal occupation of the OPT, its system of apartheid over all Palestinians, and its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“UEFA and FIFA should have suspended the Israel Football Association (IFA) long ago, for its refusal to exclude clubs based in illegal settlements in the OPT. Their continued participation in the Israeli leagues is in brazen violation of FIFA’s statutes and is contrary to international law. As the money keeps flowing from FIFA and UEFA to the IFA, they risk contributing to the sustainability of illegal settlements and of Israel’s unlawful occupation of the OPT, and therefore Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights.

“Decisions and opinions by international courts, and resolutions by the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council, over the last decades, have repeatedly condemned Israel for its multiple and egregious violations.

“Sport should never be used as a public relations spectacle for states committing atrocities.