Defense Minister Ehud Barak has reportedly given his stamp of approval to an upgrading of the status of the Judea and Samaria College in Ariel, to that of a “university center.” After two years in this interim status, the authorities will decide whether to give the institution full university status, thus making it the first university in Judea and Samaria.
Coming at a time in which authorities are cracking down on construction in Judea and Samaria, the move can be seen as sending a conciliatory message to the Jews in these areas.
Sources in Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Our Home party took credit for pressuring Barak into making the decision. “We congratulate the city of Ariel which, today, became a city with a formally recognized university,” they said. “As Israel Our Home promised when the government was established, in accordance with the coalition agreement, Ariel College is turning into a university less than one year into the government's term.”
MK Uri Ariel (National Union) congratulated Ariel College for the change in status, which he said it should have received five years ago. He threw some cold water on the celebrations, however, when he asked whether the Defense Minister “would allow the university to construct new classrooms for the students who were bound to join it now” – a reference to the ongoing construction freeze.
The rector of the college, former MK Cohen-Orgad, said that the college has been functioning as a university for years from the point of view of research, publications, faculty and level of study so that this recognition was well deserved.
The National Union's Chairman, MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz, said that “the progress of the Nation of Israel is stronger than all those who weaken it. Barak's recognition of Ariel College as a university is what the Jewish Sages defined as 'a bad angel says amen in spite of himself.'”