Amid the storm surrounding the Ireland-Israel football fixtures, it’s worth asking: what has actually been achieved, and what has been lost?
Months before the two teams were paired in the Nations League, the FAI called on Uefa to suspend Israel from the competition. Its position was clear: Israel should not be allowed to participate in international football. No other football association joined Ireland’s bid, and the attempt to have Israel excluded failed.
It was hard to miss the irony when Ireland and Israel were then drawn to face each other. What followed was a relentless campaign for the Irish team to boycott the fixtures, dominating headlines and media discussion for weeks. Individual players were pressed to declare their stance and subjected to what can only be described as an ideological purity test.
In the end, despite all the uproar, the matches are being played. The inconsistency was stark: Ireland, it seems, will readily demand action from others on the international stage, but stop short of following through itself if doing so comes at a cost.
But beyond exposing this hypocrisy, the controversy swept away almost everything that might have made Ireland’s home leg more valuable than just another game.
It might have been naive, but when the draw was made, I was hopeful. I marked the date of the Dublin match in my calendar. Thousands of Israelis would surely have travelled here, and I looked forward to them experiencing Ireland through the everyday encounters you have in a country where so many people are happy to strike up a warm conversation with a stranger, rather than through political point-scoring or angry headlines.
Football can bring out both the best and the worst in us. Sometimes sporting rivalries get wrapped up in existing divisions and turn into proxies for much wider disputes. They can then feed our instinct to split the world into us and them, making us more tribal and more determined to retreat into our own camp.
But at its best, the beautiful game can do just the opposite: bring players and spectators from different countries and different backgrounds together and give them a common language. I’ve seen something as ordinary as Irish and Israeli fans sitting in a Dublin pub watching football and getting talking. It starts with football. Then it moves to work, to family, to, “Where do you come from?” and, “What’s it really like to live there?”
Before long, you can have an Irish person hearing an Israeli father talk about how frightened he is at the thought of his children one day having to serve in the army and putting their lives on the line, and how desperately he wishes they could live a normal young adult life, while believing just as strongly that Israel needs an army to keep his family safe.
It’s only by speaking to people with different views that you can discover something deeper, more nuanced and more human behind the label
Suddenly, behind the abstract idea of “Israel”, there is an actual person, and a window into the tensions and worries they face.
One of my concerns about the public discourse around Israel in Ireland is how narrow it is. Ordinary Israelis are seldom heard explaining how they see the reality they’ve been living through, the fears and traumas they carry, or the dilemmas they face. Without their voices, it becomes much easier to dehumanise and demonise them.
On the pitch, players remind us that real life rarely fits cleanly into the categories we tend to impose on the world. England-born Finn Azaz has spoken proudly both about being half-Israeli, through his mother’s side of the family, and about representing Ireland, for whom he qualifies through his Cork-born father. For him, as for so many Irish-Israelis, these two identities sit side-by-side.
The Israeli squad, for its part, includes a number of Palestinian citizens of Israel. This fact has barely been mentioned in the extensive Irish media coverage, and it complicates the picture of two neatly opposing people. If perceptions of Israel are shaped entirely by media narratives constructed around this limited framing, crucial parts of its social fabric will stay invisible.
This is why engagement is better than distance. It introduces people to perspectives and dimensions they would probably never otherwise have come across.
Meet Israelis. Talk to them. Listen to them. Challenge them, if you wish; share with them what you think about Gaza or the Israel Defense Forces, and be willing to hear how things look from their side.
You don’t have to agree with one another. A sincere conversation might change something in how one or both parties think, but even if it doesn’t, even if both walk away holding much the same view as before, there is still huge value in having encountered something deeper, more nuanced and more human behind the label.
At a time of such poor understanding between Irish people and Israelis, we need more genuine encounters, not fewer. Sadly, rather than creating such opportunities, Ireland will “host” Israel for its “home” match not in Dublin, but in Serbia. The fixture that would have brought Israeli supporters here and put fans from both countries in the same streets and pubs has been moved abroad and behind closed doors.
Whichever way you look at it, this saga has ended badly. For all the noise, the games are going ahead. Meanwhile, the most positive thing that might have come from tomorrow’s game, the possibility of encounter, has been lost.
Perhaps my dream for those moments of real human connection was always an impossible one. Perhaps the wider atmosphere had already become too hostile. But that too is something to lament. And surely, at the very least, it would have been worth a chance. Instead, the door was shut long before a ball was even kicked.
Yoni Wieder is Chief Rabbi of Ireland