OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, May 2, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – To
the dissatisfaction of Labor minister opposed to bringing politics
into education, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon's cabinet okayed Monday,
May 2, the establishment of the first Israeli university in the
occupied West Bank.
The
cabinet voted 13-7 to upgrade the status of the College of Judea and
Samaria in Ariel Jewish settlement to a university, reported the
Israeli daily Haaretz.
The
vote was held amid acrimonious debate over the political significance
of upgrading the status of a college in a West Bank settlement.
Ariel,
home to around 17,000 settlers, is situated some 20 kilometers (13
miles) to the east of the internationally-recognized border between
Israel and the West Bank.
Under
the internationally-backed roadmap peace plan, Israel is obliged to
freeze all construction work in settlements.
UN
resolutions recognize all Jewish settlements built on occupied
Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as illegal.
The
decision also came two weeks after Britain's main university teachers'
union to boycott Bar-Ilan University for its links to the West Bank
college.
Association
of University Teachers (AUT) accused the university of being
“directly involved with the occupation of Palestinian territories
contrary to United Nations resolutions”.
Entrenching
Occupation
Sharon
said making the Ariel college a university is a way of strengthening
Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Likud
ministers followed his lead in supporting the proposal.
“Upgrading
the colleges into universities is designed to support the settlement
vision, out of a national interest of the State of Israel,” said
Education Minister Limor Livnat.
Following
talks with US President George Bush last month, Sharon said large
Israeli settlements in the West Bank “will remain in Israel's hands
under any future final status agreement”.
The
US president had triggered Arab wrath by saying Washington would never
press Israel to evacuate West Bank settlement blocs under any future
peace deal with the Palestinians.
Playing
Politics
 |
|
Pines-Paz
lambasted
Sharon
’s attempt to bring politics into higher education
unnecessarily.
|
The
university proposal, however, was given the thumbs down by Labor
ministers after Vice Premier Shimon Peres, the party’s leader, asked
them to vote against it.
Interior
Minister Ophir Pines-Paz lambasted Sharon’s attempt to bring
politics into higher education unnecessarily.
Housing
Minister Isaac Herzog said establishing a university in a
“problematic” area would “take away precious resources that do
not meet Israel's priorities”.
The
Labor’s position drew fire from hawkish Likud ministers.
Health
Minister Dan Naveh accused the Labor of “a bankruptcy of Zionism”.
“I
thought until now that there is a consensus in Israel [about the
acceptability of Ariel], and today we learned that the Labor Party is
prepared to abandon Ariel”.
Dror
Etkes, a leader of the Israeli Peace Now group, said the move was
another sign of the government's determination to create facts on the
ground and thus make it harder for Israel to leave the area.
“This
shows very clearly that the Sharon government is trying to do
everything possible to annex the Ariel block,” he told Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Even
senior officials at the Israeli Council for Higher Education (CHE),
which is legally responsible for licensing new institutions of higher
education, were against the decision.
They
maintained that establish the university is neither needed nor
affordable with a higher education budget slashed by some billion
shekels in recent years, said Haaretz.
CHE
deputy chairman, Yehezkel Teller, said that new universities would be
detrimental to the existing system of institutions, which are already
reeling from budget cuts.
More
Killing
On
the ground, Israeli occupation forces stormed Saida village close to
the West Bank town of Tulkarem, killing one Palestinian activist,
according to AFP.
Palestinian
security sources identified the killed activist as Shafiq Abdelghani,
a 35-year-old Islamic Jihad member.
An
Israeli soldier was killed and another injured in an exchange of fire
with Palestinian activists.
The
deaths bring to 4,753 people killed since the Intifada began in
September 2000, including 3,691 Palestinians.
Israeli
forces are supposed to have frozen arrest operations in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip as part of the truce agreement Sharon and Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas reached at a summit in Egypt in February.
Palestinian
resistance factions agreed on March 17 to abide by the three-month
truce until the end of 2005.
However,
Israel has more than once violated the shaky ceasefire by storming
Palestinian areas and targeting Palestinian resistance activists.
