Why are Israel and Turkey are members of ESA and UEFA???

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Why are Israel and Turkey are members of the European Space Agency and UEFA (European Football Association )?

Recently I read that Israel and Turkey are members of ESA, it amused me very much because both countries have absolutely nothing to do with Europe and have certainly not Israel, which lies entirely in Asia Minor, I am not anti-Semitic, Israel simply is not a European country.

The same is true of the UEFA competitions, I always wonder what reason Turkey and Israel participate in it, but on the other hand, Russia should not participate in them, after all, most of its territory is in Asia, but It is common to regard Russia as a European state

Currently, Turkey is negotiating its Join the European Union, and again the question arises on what basis is to be taken?

Russia is rightly considered European for the same reason that Queen Victoria was considered a European monarch and a European head of state.

She reigned when the British Empire was at its hieght and ruled a quarter of the dry land on earth on every continent. But the ruling part of the empire was tiny England, which is part of Britian, which is part of Europe.

Likewise the ruling part of the Russian Republic is west of the Ural Mountains -which are the boundry line between europe and asia. Russian republic can be thought of as England welded with a blowtorch to the onetime British colony of Australia. The european part west of the Urals is the "mother country". Siberia (east of the Urals) is the colony in Asia.


Turkey and Israel can do what the want, and call themselves what they want.
However the european union members do seem to agree with you that Turkey is not really part of europe, culturally nor geographically, and shouldnt be admitted to the european union. It would be like Mexico asking to become our 51st state-in their view.

But turkey is part of Nato.

There are limits to how seriously you should worry about geographic labels though.

Israel has had winning singers in the Eurovision contest too.
Hope that doesnt bother you too!

"West Coast" Rap comes from one flyspecked sized spot on the west coast (Compton), and East Coast only from the fly speck sized South Bronx.

The World Series in baseball is really just the "USA plus Toronto Canada Series"- hardly "the world".

And then there is "the MIss Universe Contest"...

What an outrage!

Where are all the green chicks from Mars? Or all the three breasted girls from Alpha Centauri!

The injustice of it all!

Because they want to be?

What needs to happen is the recognition of Eurasia continent. It's a matter of Asia and Europe being connected. Europe isn't really it's own continent. It's actually part of Eurasia. So, your country is, technically, on the same continent as Russia, Turkey, and Israel. It's just someone made the mistake of thinking Europe was a separate place but it's really not. It's the largest land mass on earth.

Take a look at a map of Turkey sometime: part of it's territory is unambiguously in Europe.

As for Israel, she's in these agencies for the same reason that she is in WEOG at the United Nations--because the Arab states consistently throw their weight around to prevent Israel from being included within Middle-Eastern or Asian groupings.

So there is no cultural or historical difference between Scandinavia, India, China, Russia and the Middle East?

Europe is obviously not a real continent, but a part of the one Eurasian landmass.

But it can be thought of a "subcontinent" like the Indian subcontinent. Interestingly both Europe and India were actually seperate landmasses-little continents surrounded by ocean- that slamed into Asia and thrusted up mountains when they became fused to Asia 100's of millions of years ago.

India's collision was more recent which is why the Himalayas are so big, and are still rising. Europe's collision was earlier, and the Urals are more worn down than the Himalayas.

Both regions are home to human civilizations today that have a comparable amount of diversity within themselves but also a comparable unity and distinctness from the rest of Eurasia.