Israel part of Europe?

Victor

ponpon wrote: »

'politically' part of Europe.

No such thing unless you want to get into some high-falutin, academic debate. Continents aren't political entities.

It could be argued that it is 'politically' part of the United States or Jamaica or Mozambique, but it wouldn't quite be right, wouldn't it?

Note that the traditional 4/5/6/7-continent models have gaps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Geology

Colmustard

I thought it was once but boards proved me wrong, it is not part of Europe. Turkey is.

Pawwed Rig

There is part of Turkey in Europe but most of it is in Asia. It's historical links to Greece would seem to suggest a European heritage but the fact that it is a muslim country would indicate closer ties to middle east

Goro

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Israel is not a part of Europe, it is a part of Asia. The only European Country Israel is similar to is Belarus, cause they both have horrible human rights records.

Many European countries including Western countries also have appalling human rights records.

ejmaztec

It's part of America, just left of the anus.

Amirani

Augmerson wrote: »

For me, Israel is in Asia. Specifically the Middle East. It is not in Europe. It doesn't even touch off a country that touches off a European country.

It has a border with Syria which itself has a border with Turkey.

Mervyn Crawford

Israel, like Belarus, Turkey, the UK , Ireland, the USA, Russian Federation, Maritius, China, ....and every country, is part of the world economic system.

The demonstrations, ongoing, in Israel against poverty, ineqaulity and war show as much.

The division in Israel is not that of Europpean versus Asiatic; but class against class.

Just as it is in South Africa, Ecquador, Tibet, the Faroe Islands.

The supposed Islamic dominance of countries who have a muslim characteristic in their national personality?

See this: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/tuni-a29.shtml

Israeli youth and workers have been fighting the zealots also. Bitter at conscription into state armed forces that are seen more and more as instruments of the ruling class - not defenders of the supposed 'Promised Land' against the apparent atavistic hordes living for nothing more than the death of all Jews.

Pherekydes

Kazakhstan are a member of UEFA!

Cú Giobach

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

There is part of Turkey in Europe but most of it is in Asia. It's historical links to Greece would seem to suggest a European heritage but the fact that it is a muslim country would indicate closer ties to middle east

I don't think just being an Islamic country really means the Turks have or feel closer ties to the Middle East, most of the world's Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia and the largest Islamic country is Indonesia.
Turks are not Arabic and hate it when some westerners make the mistake of referring to them as such, their roots are Central Asian.
Young people from Turkey (a huge proportion of the population) tend identify very much with Europe.

Stimpyone

Physically Israel is not in Europe. But they do strongly identify with it.

Oddly I’m currently over in Tel Aviv working for a couple of weeks and even more bizarrely had this conversation with my Israel colleagues only yesterday. Many of them expressed a desire for Israel to join the EU too.

Remember that roughly 20% of their population is European with a large percentage of that being Russian.

Franticfrank

Cyprus is in Europe and that isn't too far away from Israel. If you drive from central Europe to Israel, first you'll pass through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. You'll have to include them geographically if you're including Israel. And I don't think anyone would consider Syria part of Europe.

getz

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I don't think just being an Islamic country really means the Turks have or feel closer ties to the Middle East, most of the world's Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia and the largest Islamic country is Indonesia.
Turks are not Arabic and hate it when some westerners make the mistake of referring to them as such, their roots are Central Asian.
Young people from Turkey (a huge proportion of the population) tend identify very much with Europe.

turkey ,now thats one strange thing, a tale of two cities,constantinople former name of istanbul,it was named after the emperor constantine,and it was declared the capital of the byzantine empire[,western europe],then it was taken over by the turks,and became the capital of the ottoman empire [aisa] now they are trying their best to be part of the EU,experts are now saying the english came from turkey nine thousand years ago

Pawwed Rig

Cú Giobach wrote: »

I don't think just being an Islamic country really means the Turks have or feel closer ties to the Middle East, most of the world's Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia and the largest Islamic country is Indonesia.
Turks are not Arabic and hate it when some westerners make the mistake of referring to them as such, their roots are Central Asian.
Young people from Turkey (a huge proportion of the population) tend identify very much with Europe.

That is true and Turkey was traditionally the centre of the Eastern Roman Empire which would undoubtably be identified with Europe. It's secularism (in the western part at least) would put it on par with European sensibilities but as you said their roots are central Asia.
I am not sure I agree with you about the location of most of the worlds muslims. Indonesia and Malaysia is the only countries in South East Asia I can think of that is muslim. China, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Papau New Guinea, India - none of these are predominatly muslim. You could maybe argue that Pakistan would be South East Asia but it has greater ties with the Middle East.

Cú Giobach

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

That is true and Turkey was traditionally the centre of the Eastern Roman Empire which would undoubtably be identified with Europe. It's secularism (in the western part at least) would put it on par with European sensibilities but as you said their roots are central Asia.
I am not sure I agree with you about the location of most of the worlds muslims. Indonesia and Malaysia is the only countries in South East Asia I can think of that is muslim. China, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, Papau New Guinea, India - none of these are predominatly muslim. You could maybe argue that Pakistan would be South East Asia but it has greater ties with the Middle East.

South Asia consists of the sub Himalayan countries from Pakistan to Bangladesh including India.
South East Asia is from Myanmar (Burma) to Indonesia.
East Asia is China, Korea, Japan.
West Asia is more commonly called The Middle East and starts with Iran and continues West.
North Asia is really just Russia.
With Central Asia being, well..... central.

Pakistan was called India not too long ago.

Toby Take a Bow

Pherekydes wrote: »

Kazakhstan are a member of UEFA!

Because part of their country is in Europe. I guess they could choose.

Pawwed Rig

Cú Giobach wrote: »

South Asia consists of the sub Himalayan countries from Pakistan to Bangladesh including India.
South East Asia is from Myanmar (Burma) to Indonesia.
East Asia is China, Korea, Japan.
West Asia is more commonly called The Middle East and starts with Iran and continues West.
North Asia is really just Russia.
With Central Asia being, well..... central.

Pakistan was once called India not to long ago.

South Asia and South East Asia are different things. So there are 3 Muslim countries in Sth and Sth East Asia (admittedly very populous).
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh is generally taken as it's own sub continent.
you could equally say that most of the worlds muslims are in the Middle east and South Asia but that is just splitting hairs.
Philippines used to be muslim before the holy Spaniards converted them

Solair

The European Broadcasting Union is actually nothing to do with the EU.

The EBU is just a group of 70+ broadcasters who cooperate on mostly technical issues. There are even some members in the US and quite a few in Africa.

Its main purpose is providing broadcast support facilities e.g. news sharing networks and developing technical standards.

Israel uses European technical standards for most things e.g. PAL television in the analogue days and DVB standards in the digital era. It also pretty much follows ETSI (Telecommunication) and CENELEC standards for electrical stuff.

A heap of other countries also plug-in to European standards.

For example, GSM was a European standards which is now the most widespread mobile phone platform on the planet.
Most countries also use 230V 50Hz power and an awful lot of them use European CEE plugs and sockets either the large industrial ones used by everyone, or the 2-pin recessed grounded outlets used in houses.

I think a lot of people confuse some of these technical bodies with parts of the EU though.

A lot of Latin American counties borrow US, European and Japanese standards too. It's just how the world works, small countries can't really develop these things on their own as they wouldn't have the economies of scale, so they plug-in to a bigger bloc.

Israel's broadcasters probably joined up the EBU in the 1950s/60s to cooperate on news programming, international links, standards, satellite technology etc etc.

They pay their fees, and they get membership. It's not political and it's nothing to do with the EU.

Also, the country of Israel isn't a member of the EBU, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA), a public-service broadcaster is.
Ireland isn't a member of the EBU either, RTE & TG4 are.
In the UK : BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and S4C Wales.

It has other odd members like Vatican Radio.

The Eurovision song contest is increasingly a total mess though. I'd say it'll be time to scrap it eventually.

Technically speaking, if RTE got fed up with the Eurovision they could let TG4 do it instead as they're both members.

As for Israel being part of Europe - no, it's part of the Middle East geographically. There's no real confusion about that at all.

Cú Giobach

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Won't argue about that. So there are 3 Muslim countries in Sth East Asia (admittedly very populous).
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh is generally taken as it's own sub continent so personally I would not consider them S E Asia but I suppose it is a matter of opinion.
Philippines used to be muslim before the holy Spaniards converted them

Calling India, Pakistan and Bangladesh South Asia is the official UN designation not an opinion. Check out the World Bank's list of countries and here is Wiki on it.
Some other countries are questionable but not the three mentioned.

If you look at the full map of Asia you will see how this makes sense.

Pawwed Rig

Cú Giobach wrote: »

Calling India, Pakistan and Bangladesh South Asia is the official UN designation not an opinion. Check out the World Bank's list of countries and here is Wiki on it.
Some other countries are questionable but not the three mentioned.

If you look at the full map of Asia you will see how this makes sense.

I thought I put that in my post? I said India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are considered on their own (ie their own sub continent). I fear we are agreeing here:p

Cú Giobach

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I thought I put that in my post? I said India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are considered on their own (ie their own sub continent). I fear we are agreeing here:p

I was just saying it's not a matter of opinion as you mentioned, they really are in south Asia, it might not seem quite right until you actually look at a map and then it becomes obvious.

2ndcoming

wendell borton wrote: »

it's part of eurasia.

Aren't we at war with Eurasia? I thought we've always been at war with Eurasia??

Mr Benevolent

No fcukin' way. Having Israel in the EU would be as bad as having Turkey in the EU. Worse, probably.

Solair

I think Turkey's cooling off EU membership now that the EU's screwed up so badly and it's relatively prosperous.

Toby Take a Bow

Solair wrote: »

I think Turkey's cooling off EU membership now that the EU's screwed up so badly and it's relatively prosperous.

Last I heard the EU were still humming and hawing about their membership. They still seemed to want membership. Maybe something's changed recently? I think the EU is considered beneficial mainly due to trading.

Augmerson

NiallSparky wrote: »

It has a border with Syria which itself has a border with Turkey.

Touche.

efb

TG4 hosting the Eurovision - lots of hot gaelgoirs no one knew existed

Peanut

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

Last I heard the EU were still humming and hawing about their membership. They still seemed to want membership. Maybe something's changed recently? I think the EU is considered beneficial mainly due to trading.

Not much happening about it at the moment, as far as I know the current main stumbling block is agreement over Cyprus re: opening shipping ports and the general situation there.

Toby Take a Bow

Peanut wrote: »

Not much happening about it at the moment, as far as I know the current main stumbling block is agreement over Cyprus re: opening shipping ports and the general situation there.

Yeah, but I get the impression they still want it. They're unrealistic about it, but they still seem to want it.