A minute’s silence for Israel but not Palestine? Maybe we should stick to football after all

The separation of sport and politics was in a more innocent age a guiding principle of big sporting gatherings, a worthy ambition to protect against the appropriation of global events by state propagandists.

It might be worth returning to this simplistic vision, if only to avoid filling an already overloaded space with more well-meant but ineffective, ill-advised, misinformed shows of public support – the like of which we witnessed at Wembley following the tragic events in the Middle East and the lethal shootings in Belgium.

Outrage over the FA’s decision not to display the colours of Israel on the Wembley arch before Friday’s match against Australia was an early flashpoint, the weight of moral rectitude siding overwhelmingly with Israel following the heinous attack by Hamas militants.

Perhaps noting that the conflict between Israel and Palestine did not start last week, the FA took the more neutral position of a minute’s silence in recognition of the casualties on both sides of this appalling escalation. But that was not good enough for many in the virtuous circle.

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In this mass, multi-media, internet age that has given everyone a voice, we are assailed from all sides by trenchant views.

Inflamed opinions, many born of ignorance and hatred, are passed off as truths by people who have little appreciation of deep-rooted, historical antecedents.

Some of the finest brains, the sharpest intellects, the deepest thinkers from all creeds have been going back and forth over an origin story as old as recorded history. Stick a pin in any date in the calendar since Moses was a lad and you will find one belief system in murderous dispute with another.

More than 2000 years on the world is once more at a point of crisis, the great powers scrambling about to find a solution. Quite what sporting organisations think they might achieve by flying this flag or that, standing in silent communion with this cause or that, is a moot point if offence to one side or another is the result.

Moreover, to make a show of support for some victims and not others as Uefa did at Wembley makes the case for binning these absurd, empty gestures forthwith. Either unwittingly or callously, Uefa made membership of the organisation, European football’s governing body (which also includes Israel), the criterion for receiving its support.

Thus the FA were instructed to orchestrate a moment’s silence in tribute to the two Swedish victims of the Brussels shooting and the Israeli dead in the Middle East.

Somehow the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians in retaliatory Israeli air strikes did not register since Palestine is not a Uefa member. Where do you rate that on the scale of cruel, moral insensitivity? It is to the credit of officials that they chose to sweep through Wembley’s media suite to distance the FA from Uefa’s ham-fisted directive. It is better to do nothing than do wrong for trying to do good.

There is no shame in throwing up your hands in confusion over an intractable conflict. It is possible to feel sympathy for the tragic loss on both sides, and anger at the failure of opposing leaders, and their connected factions among the Western powers and the Arab world, for the failure to find a solution.

But the answer is certainly not to be found in a minute’s silence before a football match at Wembley, the more so when the grand gesture is authored by ignorance and stupidity.