Why Does Israel's Football Team Play In Europe?
As Sepp Blatter tries to resolve Israel's status in FIFA, we look at the country's turbulent history in international football.
Monday 18 May 2015 17:36, UK
For those unacquainted with the history of the Middle East, the idea of a country which borders Jordan and Egypt playing in European football competition may appear an odd one.
The Palestinian Football Association is expected to launch a motion calling for Israel to be suspended from world football's governing body at the FIFA annual congress later this month.
But the development is merely the latest in a turbulent history for Israeli football since the country's creation in 1948.
The Arab world's rejection of Israel, both politically and in football terms, stems from the state's inception.
For Palestinians and many neighbouring countries, what Israel describes as the war of independence between 1947 and 1949 is seen as the "Nakba", or the catastrophe.
This is due to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forcibly removed from their homes in what was previously British Mandate Palestine.
Israel began competing in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1954 despite significant opposition from some existing members.
A number of Muslim states refused to play against the new national side, which culminated in the bizarre spectacle of the 1958 World Cup qualifying stage for Asia and Africa - won by Israel without playing a single game.
FIFA, determined to avoid the embarrassment of a country qualifying for the fledgling international tournament without kicking a ball, arranged a play-off with Wales.
Israel duly lost the two-legged tie, suffering 2-0 defeats at home and away.
Six years later, Israel hosted and won the 1964 AFC Asian Cup, which remains the country's sole international football trophy.
However, the achievement was arguably undermined by the pre-tournament withdrawal of 11 of the 16 intended participating countries.
Israel triumphed with just three wins, against India, South Korea and Hong Kong.
An official video history of the competition released by the AFC in January 2015 omitted any mention of the 1964 tournament.
After qualifying for its first and only World Cup in 1970, Israel began a 20-year period in the relative international wilderness when it was excluded from AFC tournaments from 1974.
It came at a time of increased hostility in the region towards Israel, which had been at war with all its neighbouring countries in both 1967, when Israel launched a pre-emptive war and captured the Jordan-controlled West Bank and the old city of Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula, and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War that saw it successfully defend its occupation of those territories.
A motion initiated by Kuwait during the 1974 Asian Games, where the oil-rich state and North Korea both refused to play against Israel, saw the country expelled from the AFC.
The national side played in the European qualifiers for the 1982 World Cup, before joining Oceania's qualification stage for the next two tournaments.
Israeli clubs began taking part in European club competitions in 1991 and its football association became full UEFA members in 1994 - having famously beaten France in a 1993 World Cup qualifier.
Its membership continues to represent an anomaly in international football, and was cited by some as a justification for Australia's switch from the Oceania Football Confederation to the AFC in 2006.
But if Israel's elite footballers have suffered as a result of the country's complex history, they are unlikely to gain much sympathy from their Palestinian counterparts.
It was only following the Oslo Accords in 1998 that the Palestinian football side was able to join FIFA, when it joined the likes of England, Wales and Scotland as one of the few non-sovereign states granted national team status.