Israel grants university status to West Bank settlement college

Jeruslem - Israel granted university status to a college in its northern West Bank settlement of Ariel, Israeli television reported Wednesday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, of the left-to-center coalition Labor Party, authorized the move, which had been held up for the past five years, Channel 10 reported.

Ariel is the largest settlement in the northern West Bank, located in the heart of the occupied territory.

Various Israeli governments have said they regard it as one of the large settlement blocks Israel should keep as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. If Ariel were to be incorporated within Israel's final borders, however, this would mean cutting deep into the northern West Bank.

The college in the settlement city had already unofficially been calling itself a university, by naming itself the Ariel University Center of Samaria. Founded in 1982 and with nearly 11,000 students, it is the largest Israeli academic institution beyond the "green line" separating Israel from the West Bank.

Samaria is the Jewish Biblical name Israel uses for the northern West Bank.

Dovish Israeli lawmakers slammed the Defense Ministry's decision to grant official university status to the institution, with Haim Oron of the left-liberal Meretz party saying it amounted to "moral and ideological bankruptcy" which would step up calls in the international community for boycotting Israeli academics.

Nationalist lawmakers however welcomed the move.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304898,israel-grants-university-status-to-west-bank-settlement-college.html.