A wonderful strike by Sotiris Ninis gave Greece an ever-so-precious 1-0 victory in Israel for the Euro 2012 qualifiers.
Greece now have 17 points out of seven games and a win on Tuesday against Latvia in Riga will secure the national team a top-two finish, with another couple of games to be played.
Israel have 13 points from eight games, and will probably be unable to catch Greece.
The Greeks' golden goal at Tel Aviv came at the hour mark when Giorgos Karagounis and substitute Grigoris Makos earned the ball in midfield, allowing Ninis to roll forward with it.
The Panathinaikos midfielder ran some 20 metres with the ball fending off a number of challenges by the hosts before his well-placed strike beat Israeli keeper Dudu Aouate.
For most of the game Greece had control of its pace and had about 10 chances in total to score, after putting pressure on the Israeli goal from the start.
Given the heat and the humidity at this early afternoon kickoff, the idea for coach Fernando Santos was for Greece to impose its game from the start, score a goal and then sit back and defend when their legs would be getting heavier.
Karagounis, Pantelis Kaffes and his first-half replacement Makos did a great job in the midfield and fed Giorgos Samaras and Dimitris Salpigidis a number of times. Had Samaras been more cautious Greece would taken the lead far earlier.
Yet it was the weakest link in the Greek front line, Ninis, who got to score the precious goal for the Greeks, that the hosts had no answer to.
Israel got no more than they deserved as they seemed bereft of ideas in attack and put comparatively little pressure on the Greek defence, as some of their best players, such as Yossi Benayoun and Tal Ben Haim underperformed.
The final whistle found the 150 Greece fans at the stands singing the Greek hymn, next to the massive Greek flag they had brought with them, while the home fans jeered at their own team.
Costas Katsouranis and Vassilis Torosidis will miss Tuesday's game in Latvia as they got another booking.
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