Enough to be in the Eurovision (it's a more complex question than you might imagine).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93European_Union_r...

This is so hypocritical. What it actually says is: world is full of politics and bullshit. We just bomb the ones we want and call them enemies while we call others friends because it is better in our intere$t.

Except that Eurovision has as much to do with the European Union as the UEFA champions league (read: none).

For some purposes, Israel is grouped with Europe; that's all.

Israel tags along several European events such as football championships, Eurovision etc. Partially I suspect it's because they don't have the necessary relationship with their neighbours to be included in a more regional context.

Similarly, what continents do Istanbul and St. Petersburg belong to?

Cyprus is an EU member state, but geographically, it is in Asia.

Part of Istanbul is in Europe, another part is in Asia. Whole St. Petersburg is in Europe. No part of Tel Aviv is in Europe.

Sure, geographically speaking, that’s correct. That’s not what I was getting at, though. Israel is more akin to Western Europe culturally than European countries like Albania. Israel has a functioning democracy, freedom of speech and religion, excellent education and healthcare, and it has a higher GDP than most European countries. Europeans have been coming to Jerusalem en masse for thousands of years, especially this guy by the name of Jesus has been quite popular with Europeans.

Pretty much everyone I know considers Israel to be a middle eastern country. While it's true that European Jews have absorbed a huge amount of European culture and are Europeans for all intents and purposes, whether Israel can be considered a part of Europe is extremely debatable.

Just because certain nations are culturally close, that doesn't suddenly close the geographical gap between them. New Zealand and Australia are culturally much closer to Europe than Turkey and yet that doesn't make them a part of Europe.

Now, to say that Israel is a western country would be correct (as are US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and possibly even many central and south American countries). But to say that they are in Europe would be incorrect. Let's stick to geographical facts and not reinvent common knowledge, shall we?

In the same vein, "European" is not the same as "In Europe"

Apparently Asia doesn't want it anymore.

Judging from the article it seems like Asia's loss.