Tonight sees Newcastle United begin their campaign for European honours, but for their opponents, there's considerabley more at stake than glory. Scott Wilson reports.

ABED Abu Salakh's dream was to watch his son, Walid, play football on some of the biggest stages in Europe. Like so many other fathers across the world, Abed spent most of his Saturday mornings watching his son develop from an untrained novice into a well-drilled junior, ready to take the next step up the sporting ladder.

But, just as Walid was on the verge of making his club's first team in autumn 2000, he was one of three demonstrators shot dead by Israeli policemen in his hometown of Sakhnin.

Instead of his usual weekend trips to the football field, Abed turned his back on the sport, shunning his local side because of the painful memories it stirred within him.

For almost four years he took no interest in the game until, in May and against all the odds, the minnows of Bnei Sakhnin reached the Israeli Cup final.

Accompanied by more than 30,000 other Israeli Arabs, Abed travelled to Tel Aviv's National Stadium to watch Sakhnin upset the odds and beat favourites Hapoel Haifa 4-1.

The victory meant that Sakhnin became the first Arab team to win the Israeli Cup and qualify for the UEFA Cup - an achievement which brings them to England tonight for a first round tie with Newcastle United.

But, for Abed, the success finally provided some form of release from the horrific death of his son.

"I didn't smile for three and a half years," he said. "Only in the stadium I felt some kind of happiness. But nothing would heal the wound in my heart."

All too often, sport and politics are a volatile mix but, in a tiny corner of one of the most divided societies on earth, the players of Sakhnin provide evidence of football's unifying potential.

In the Israeli Cup final, a Jewish player, Lior Asulin, scored twice, while the Arab captian, Abbas Sawan, lifted the trophy to the acclaim of all sections of Israeli society.

Yasser Arafat rang to congratulate the team from his embattled West Bank headquarters, while Israeli president Ariel Sharon promised to help rebuild Sakhnin's derelict stadium so they could "represent Israel with honour".

Representing Israel is not something that the country's Arabic minority have been used to since the state was established in 1948.

Despite making up around 20 per cent of the population, the Israeli Arab minority has always been deemed to be a second class inhabitant of the Jewish state, suffering institutional as well as social discrimination.

Arabs are unable to build housing in areas that are designated as Jewish, despite those areas taking up almost all of Israel's inhabitable land.

Their settlements are systematically denied access to electricity, water and schools, while the amount of money spent on the Arabic population is vastly inferior to that spent on the Jewish community, despite the levels of taxation remaining the same.

But, while the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank have always been seen as a threat to the continued existence of the Israeli state, the Israeli Arab minority has generally been viewed as an unwelcome, but ultimately unalarming, hindrance.

That is until the events of 2000, and the second Palestinian intifada, put questions of ethnicity and religion firmly to the forefront of Israeli political life.

"The situation for Israeli Arabs is a serious problem, and it's unquestionably getting worse," explains Dr Emma Murphy, a specialist in Israeli affairs at Durham University.

"The latest stage of the crisis can be traced to the demonstrations that followed Sharon's visit to the Temple on the Mount in 2000.

"Those demonstrations were perceived to be linked to the Palestinian question, but they had nothing to do with the West Bank.

"They were Israeli Arabs demonstrating at the Israeli state's inability to redress the balance between its treatment of the various social and ethnic groups.

"These were peaceful protests - the Israeli Arab community is nothing like the West Bank community - but the response of the Israeli police was to kill 13 protestors.

"That set the two communities against each other and, as the Israeli government has gradually moved to the right because of the recent wave of suicide bombings, so the Arab community has become more and more ostracised.

"Now you have a situation where cabinet ministers are openly advocating the forced re-patriation of Arabs from Israel and, with the Arabic population having a far greater birth rate than the Jewish one, it's a problem that's not going to go away."

Most sections of Israeli society have become increasingly fractured along ethnic lines but, when Sakhnin's footballers take the field at St James's Park tonight, they will deliver a significant blow to those who argue that Arabs and Jews can never successfully integrate. With 12 Israeli Arabs, seven Israeli Jews and four overseas players, Bnei Sakhnin will prove that increased segregation does not inevitably lead to ethnic isolation.

"The most significant thing about this week's game will be that the Arabic players are representing Israel," says Murphy.

"They're not representing Israeli Arabs. Notionally at least, they're representing every single member of the Israeli nation.

"They're not traitors or a fifth column, and they're proving that there are still some areas of life that have not been overwhelmed by the Israeli right.

"The arts, entertainment and sport have generally been the domain of the liberal left and, by getting so much exposure this week, the Sakhnin team will prove that those parts of life can still play a political role."

Around 100 Sakhnin fans are expected to travel to Newcastle for tonight's game, with the away contingent likely to be swelled by British-based Arabs wanting to show their support.

The game is also being televised live on Israeli television, with the bulk of Sakhnin's 25,000 residents expected to watch from high in the Galilee hills.

One fan watching with particular interest will be Muslach El Daksa, an Arab who lives on the outskirts of the northern Israeli town of Haifa.

Muslach played for his local team against Sakhnin, in the days when the Israeli Cup winners were little more than a village side playing on whatever strip of grass was available.

"It will be a great thrill to watch Sakhnin playing a side like Newcastle United," he says. "As a former footballer I know about how much good the sport is capable of doing.

"When you are an adult in Israel there is integration in the workplace but, when you are a child, you tend to live your whole life with people from your religion and way of life.

"For me, football was the only place I met Jews as a child. It showed me that there was no difference between the two groups of people and that can only be a good thing."

Whatever happens tonight - and it is likely to be a heavy defeat for the Israeli side - Sakhnin's players will have achieved more in 90 minutes of football than their highly-paid opponents can ever dream of.

Fittingly, the game takes place on the Jewish New Year's Day. It will mark the start of a new year and, for a fleeting moment at least, provide a glimpse of a new era.