Israel creates first ‘army-owned’ university

February 9, 2010 by Infowars Ireland

NAZARETH – The Palestinian Chronicle
Monday, February 8, 2010

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak

Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, last week approved the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process, the Palestinian Chronicle repoted on its Web site on Monday.

The decision, authorizing the first Israeli university in Palestinian territory, is expected to entitle the college to significant extra funding, allowing it to expand its student population.

About 11,000 students, most from inside Israel, already attend the college in Ariel, studying amid a population of 18,000 settlers.

The expansion of Ariel, 20km inside the West Bank and close to Nablus, is likely to increase tensions with the US administration of Barack Obama. The White House has demanded a settlement freeze that is being only temporarily and partially honored by Israel.

The United States and Israel have repeatedly clashed over Israeli plans to extend its separation wall east of Ariel, effectively annexing the settlement and separating the central and northern parts of the West Bank.

Peace groups have been particularly shocked that authorization for Ariel college’s upgrade came from Mr. Barak, leader of the Labor Party. Members of his centre-left faction had previously blocked attempts by right-wing parties to change the college’s status.

Several Israeli academics also warned that it would add fuel to existing campaigns in Europe to boycott Israeli universities, which have been accused of complicity with the occupation.

“This is all about trying to make the settlement of Ariel ‘kosher’,” said Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settlement growth. “It helps to reinforce the growing consensus in Israel that Ariel should remain part of Israel permanently.”

Ariel College has grown dramatically since its founding in 1982 as the West Bank campus of Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, close to Tel Aviv. On becoming independent in 2004, the college immediately began lobbying for university status. A year later it won the backing of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister then, who described the upgrade as of “great importance” in realising a policy of “strengthening the settlements”.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, declared at the time that a university in Ariel would ensure the settlement “will forever remain part of the state of Israel”.

The upgrade was opposed by Israel’s education oversight body, the Higher Education Council, which threatened to withhold recognition of the college’s degrees.

Nonetheless, in 2007 the college renamed itself the “Ariel University Centre”, a change of status initially endorsed by the government of Ehud Olmert. Under pressure from education officials, however, the decision was reversed on the grounds that only Israeli military authorities in the West Bank – under Mr Barak – could authorize such a change.

Despite opposition from members of his party, the defense minister finally consented last week.

Yossi Sarid, a former chairman of the Higher Education Council, wrote in the Haaretz newspaper on Thursday: “Thanks to [Mr. Barak], we will have the only university in the free world whose founders and owners are uniformed officers.”

Mr. Barak’s approval suggested the growing power of the far right in Mr. Netanyahu’s government, said Anat Matar, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University. Read more…