Colin Sheridan: Time for Ireland to act and support football-mad Palestine

A friendly against the Asian Cup heroes would be a good idea.

The grandmother of Palestine's defender and captain Musab al-Battat prays as she watches the live television broadcast of the Qatar 2023 AFC Asian Cup football match between Qatar and Palestine. Picture:  HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images

During the 2018 World Cup, I was living in the seaside town of Tyre, southern Lebanon, about 10 miles from what's technically known as the Blue Line - a demarcation zone between Israel and Lebanon. It is not a border, but a “line of withdrawal,” policed by the United Nations following the retreat of occupying Israeli forces in 2000. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 with the stated aim of eliminating the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and remained there as an occupying force for 18 years.

Tyre - or, Sour - is like something from a Jean-Claude Izzo novel. A rugged, often beautiful, always scrappy port city on the edge of the Mediterranean that has been occupied since the bronze age. It’s hosted everyone from the Phoenicians to Alexander the Great to every iteration of the Roman empire, and for a few months that long, hot summer, it hosted me.