The idea for an Australian football team made up of Israelis and Palestinians playing later this year in the AFL's International Cup began with Tanya Oziel.

Ms Oziel is a Sephardic Jew whose family origins go back to Iraq. She grew up in Sydney and went to a local high school where none of the boys played Australian rules football. In 1986, when she was 17, she went to Israel and worked on a kibbutz for five years and met her husband, Reuven.

In 1990 they returned to Australia where Reuven turned on the TV one night and was converted at a glance to AFL. Tanya and Reuven then had a son Haim who grew up with his father's passion for the game and, at the age of 10, announced: "I want to play footy."

"But Haim," she replied, "they play on Saturday." While "not absolutely a religious Jew", the Sabbath was important to her as a family day but her son was insistent. "I actually gave in. This is what Australian football does to people."

It was no easy thing to find a local AFL club in Sydney and, when they finally located the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs, they were told the club's junior teams were full. Instead, they were sent down the road to the Maroubra Saints. Haim kicked four goals at his debut and eight against the Bulldogs in the grand final. He has since made the NSW combined independent schools team for his age group two years in a row.

Before taking up footy, Haim's mother says, he was a Jewish kid going to a Jewish school. That was his world. Now one of his best mates is a Torres Strait Islander and his mother shares his passion for the Maroubra Saints which she describes as their family club.

"That old Sherrin ball is special," she says. "It has a soul. It keeps jumping barriers".

Previously the chief executive officer of the Australian-Israel Chamber of Commerce in NSW, Ms Oziel is now the executive director of the Australian chapter of the Peres Peace Centre, an organisation established by the Israeli President, Shimon Peres, 10 years ago to encourage grassroots peace initiatives between Palestinians and Israelis.

"I'm very strong in my Jewishness," she says. "I'm proud to be Jewish. But what is the alternative to peace? There is all this hatred in the world. But where does it get us?"

Footy expanded her son's life in a way she believed was good. She began to see the larger potential of this. With James Demetriou from Sport Without Borders she floated the idea of taking Ozkick to Israeli and Palestinian kids. Then the AFL's multicultural officer, Nick Hatzoglou, suggested bringing a team to Australia.

On Wednesday, in the AFL's boardroom, a collection of businessmen donated nearly $300,000 to make that possible. Ms Oziel says Australian football is better than soccer for the purpose she has in mind - Palestinians and Israelis meeting through a sport about which they have no pre conceptions and no history.

An appeal was made to expatriate Australians in Israel to put on an exhibition match, which they did. An AFL official, Kevin Sheehan, flew to Israel and took a series of training sessions. Scenes from a documentary being made about the team show Sheehan in front of a whiteboard with the team instructions written in two languages, Arabic and Hebrew.

The team has two coaches, one Palestinian, one Israeli. The Palestinian was previously involved in the armed conflict.

The International Cup begins on August 27. After arriving in Australia, the Peres Centre Peace Team will be coached by the Brownlow medallist Robert DiPierdomenico. Called a wog as a schoolboy, DiPierdomenico knows all about football's ability to transcend barriers.

Ms Oziel says her dream is that the Peres Centre Peace Team wins the International Cup's developing nation division. "That would show anything is possible," she says.