#I am after all a child of the NZ left of the 1980s

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I'm not cosigning the tweet, nor the stan war reason it was brought up. But the audio was from May 2017, before his tours where he did not visit Israel or China... so hopefully, his agent or someone better informed him of the conflict since clearly, he did not know. twitter*com/atmosfairic/status/1151609553798270979?s=20

BY THE WAY, a lot of people do care Niall said that and that is precisely how that anon knows Niall said he would play in Israel... and they're bringing it up... because people cared enough to talk about it publically. In the audio Niall lists like every controversial country he could, it wasn't good.

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Thanks for the link anon. I can’t believe I missed that clip (I must work on my branding - because I’d really like ‘wants to know if any 1D member breathes near breaking a cultural boycott’ is definitely part of what I’d like my brand to be).

I’m going to push back on your framing of ‘controversial countries’.  I think that collapses together lots of different things.  Israel is the only country (as far as I know) where organised resistance is calling for a cultural boycott.  As I said recently, I don’t think it’s useful to suggest that they should never play ‘controversial’ countries - not least because it suggests the countries they play are non-controversial or OK.

Anyway, back to the clip, it kind of does my head in.  Does he really not know why 1D never played Israel? Are we supposed to believe it just happened that way?

I do think there’s a significant difference between this clip of Niall and the older clip of Liam, in terms of knowledge and likely political awareness.  

But for me, the lines in the sand are actually playing (or visiting) Israel and statements that support the Israeli state. Talking about playing Israel is concerning, but it’s not breaking the boycott.

But for ages my prediction for 1D members most like to play Israel has been: Liam, Harry, Niall, Louis, Zayn.  So for all this makes me anxious. I can at least feel like I was right.