Israel ploughing funding into West Bank settlement university

The Israeli government is ploughing funding into Ariel University, based in a West Bank settlement of the same name.

According to an investigative report published on 30 October by Israeli financial paper Calcalist, Ariel University benefits from such “massive state funding” that it is “the best funded [Israeli] university”.

Since 2007, Ariel has been given $42 million “through various contractual engagements with state institutions”, in contrast to other universities’ receiving “far smaller sums”; Hebrew University, for example, got only $16.5 million during the same time period (and Ben-Gurion University, $604,000).

Ariel University has its origins as a regional public college in Kedumim settlement, founded in 1983. In 1991, it moved to Ariel settlement, “and offered academic studies under the aegis of the recognised university of Bar-Ilan.”

Four years ago, it was accorded full university status, a process that involved the Israeli military establishing a ‘Council for Higher Education of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank’, specifically for that task.

According to the report, “if it continues with its current growth rate and preferential funding, it could become Israel’s biggest and richest university.”