And as Ive said I hate what they are doing there, however if our own country and pretty much all countries in the world continue to have diplomatic and commercial relationships with Israel why should a man taking a job there be the one expected to take the stand? The same nonsense happened with LIV golf, the players were hammered for working for the Saudis while nations continue to do business with them.
Sports people are role models yes, but they also have jobs to do. If an opportunity arises that helps their career why should they be the ones that have to be the moral compass when governments dont.
Hmmm, Chris Andrews criticising Robbie Keane for working in a country whose government (people?) he characterises as "murdering *******s".
Any relation to the Chris Andrews who, when working for Fianna Fail in 2012, had this to say about Sinn Fein:
In this latest embarrassment [Andrew] engaged with other Twitter account users saying “… given what SF has done to innocent people it’s a bit much listening to you pontificate”.
He mocks one Twitter user for “believing everything Mahon report says but doesn’t belive (sic) that Gerry Adams was in the IRA!”.
Referring to the brutal 1972 murder of Belfast mother of 10 Jean McConville who was abducted from her Belfast home, shot in the back of the head, and her body buried in a Co Louth beach, he tweeted, “Was it not corrupt to bury mother of 10 Jean Mc Conville. Is that acceptable to you. Selective outrage I thinks.”
Other tweets referred to “workers on their way to bank raids” and “so Ira never done bank robberies”. In 2004, £26.5m was robbed from the Northern Bank in Belfast. Both the British and Irish governments blamed the IRA for carrying out one of the biggest bank raids in UK history. Sinn Féin has denied the IRA was responsible.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20242274.html
Still, at least Andrews never went to work for Sinn Fe.... oh, wait
Last edited by EalingGreen; 29/06/2023 at 4:08 PM.
I absolutely hate what Israel do (and especially Dudu Awat, who I'd like to remind everyone had his nose broken by a team-mate in La Liga for being a ********) but the club exist, the various federations allow them to compete and they offered him a job.
Whilst I probably think Israel should be treated like apartheid SA, they arent't so Robbie is ok to take this job.
Who knows, maybe he'll bring peace to the region. Optimism, chaps.
Er, I think you mean Niall Quinn MBE?
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/nial...y-mbe-1.492591
Ha ha.
Anyhow, at the risk of the Mods moving this to "Current Affairs", "Rubbish" or even deleting it entirely (understandable, I admit), I've never read Quinn's autobiography, but I have read Christopher Hitchens' biographical pieces on Mother Theresa and I cannot recommend them highly enough:
https://christopherhitchens.net/mother-teresa
Iconoclasm in the very best sense of the term!
Bringing the conversation back to Robbie Keane and football, is there any Irish players that might follow him there? Could Troy Parrott for example go there on loan instead of the English lower leagues? TBH I've not ever really given any consideration the the strength of the league there but I always like the idea of our players going abroad rather than just England.
I don’t like the political debate but feel obligated to weigh in with some balance. Prior to leaving Ireland and having close Israeli and Palestinian friends, I would have identified with a lot of the rhetoric.
Israeli-Palestine relations are extraordinarily complicated, the Irish media portrayal of the conflict is the most one sided view that I’ve observed. Forgotten is the recurrent persecution of the Jewish people, the “valid” claims on both sides, the fact that many Palestinians (nomadic by nature at that time) happily sold their land to settling Jews too in the late 19th early 20th century so there was a strong “legal” Jewish presence. And by far and away, the average Israeli Jewish person wants peace, are happy for a two state solution but unfortunately Palestine have no control over Hamas (whose main objective is to destroy Israel) leading to zero trust on the Israeli part. Yes, Israel have a lot of strong financial support, but without this Israel would have ceased to exist years ago. Should they not have a right to secure their country? Obviously they’ve completed over reacted at times, but is it okay for them just to permissibly stand by while Hamas attach and rely purely on their defense system?
The Irish history of English oppression naturally lend itself to the Irish people supporting the underdog but the level of biased reporting is remarkable in the Irish media. Suffice to say it is complicated, there are clear wrongs on BOTH side, and there is no easy end in sight exacerbated with current Israeli hardline government and uncontrolled Hamas.
I don’t think this forum is the appropriate place for a debate on the Middle East conflict, it would be nice to move on. I wish Robbie well, and have no qualms with him taking the Tel Aviv job from a profesional standpoint. The fact that so many Irish seem to have an issue is pretty sad in my book
Robbie could use his position to advocate for Palestinians and to help raise the issue which would be helpful as unfortunately Israel manages to shut down any real discussion of the issue with its very successful attempts to potrat critism of the zionist policy of ethic cleansing and plantation as anti semitism by cynically categorising judaeism and zionism as one and the same .
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