It's culturally closer to Europe than to its Muslim neighbors. Israel competes in the Eurovision song contest and in the European soccer confederation.

If you are going to use that standard then the UK is in North America as it's culturally closer to US/Canada than France/Germany.

I know British people who don't think the UK is part of Europe. British discourse often refers to "the continent" as something distinct from Britain.

That is a matter of opinion!

True, that's why the article ommited the UK. (and UK startups are rarely labeled 'european')

The reason Israel competes in European football instead of the regional equivalent is to avoid matches such as Israel vs. Syria and Israel vs. Iran.

They can still play against Germany though.

Yes, because of the long-standing occupation of the Palestinian territories, the lack of rights afforded to the Palestinian Arabs living there and the ever growing Israeli settlements in and around these Palestinian communities, Israel isn't very welcomed by its other Arab nations.

Except when it comes to its apartheid-like policies in the West Bank, but then again formally Apartheid South Africa was long accepted as part of the West too...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analog...

From the HN guidelines:

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

Geography is a cultural and political construct.

Why Morocco considered East, while Greece West? Geographically Morocco is 2500km to the west from Greece, culturally Morocco is predominantly Muslim, while Greece Christian.

Also geographically almost whole Republic of Azerbaijan, parts of Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan are considered in Europe.

The Kazakhstan case is funny, considering it's bordering China.

Please stop using that kitsch abomination known as eurovision for reference. Use UEFA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA