The Times Higher Education World University Rankings website indicates that Ariel University is located in Israel, Samaria. BRISMES sent a letter asking THE to rectify the address of Ariel University as Occupied Palestinian Territory in line with the United Nations defintion.
John Gill
Editor, Times Higher Education
Dear Mr Gill,
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings website indicates that Ariel University is located in Israel, Samaria.
This is wrong and contrary to international law and the United Nations interpretation of the status of the territory where Ariel University is situated. In fact, Ariel is an Israeli illegal colony in the Palestinian West Bank, an area illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 and into which Israel has been illegally transferring its civilian population for decades.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying power from transferring its civilian population into and constructing settlements within militarily occupied territories. In 1998 the International Criminal Court defined such acts as “war crimes” in its statute. The University of Ariel has been built as a result of (and a contribution to) this illegal process that has dispossessed the local Palestinian population from their land.
BRISMES asks the THE to rectify the address of Ariel University as Occupied Palestinian Territory in line with the United Nations definition, and acknowledge that Ariel University is situated in an illegal Israeli colony.
Yours sincerely,
Professor the Baroness Afshar OBE President, The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES)