To the best of my geography knowledge Israel is in the middle east but am surprise that instead of playing the Asian cup they are playing in UEFA, Please Educate me or is it just politics?

yes, Israel is in the middle east but they joined UEFA so in football they are a European team. Countries can sign up with whatever confederation they like.
Australia is another example. They joined the Asian Federation so they could avoid play offs with South American teams and have an easier route in qualifying for the world cup.

@ medjai

Thank you for the response. but going by your response if i were contries like belgium we will just join concacaf and qualify easily to the world cup.

@HAH

It also requires the acceptance of the association you want to join as there would likely be some voting process and politics involved prior to acceptance. In Israel's case, it was easy for them to be accepted on humanitarian and safety grounds, can you imagine how unsafe it would be for Israel to go and play at places like Syria, Iran and Iraq?
After what happened at the Munich olympics where Israeli athlethes were killed by terrorists, it was easy to convince europe to take them in.

Yes you just hit the nail on the head. It was mainly political.

@ topic,

strictly political. . . . . u can just imagine an israeli team going to islamabad to play football - hmmmm. . . .



@ duduspace,

may i also add that it'd need FIFA's blessing too!

RuuDie:

@ duduspace,

may i also add that it'd need FIFA's blessing too!

You are very right, Thanks. I think HAH should be very clear about his question now.

its affiliated to uefa instead of AFC

It's simple. Israel were too scared by the thoughts of their arch middle east rivals, and therefore will be playing [url="http://eurocup2016news.com"]Euro Cup[/url].