JERUSALEM, Israel – This week, the U.S. State Department confirmed a decision to halt funding to and cooperation with Israel on scientific and technological research projects based in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). That decision has angered some Israelis and even brought charges of racism.
A spokesman for Ariel University, the largest major educational institution in Samaria with 17,000 students, ten percent of whom are Arab, called the decision “disgusting.” Bobby Brown, senior vice president at the university, told JNS News, There should be no political limitations on research that benefits society and health, safety and wellbeing of the world’s population.” Brown added. “The State Department has revised this disgusting and anti-Jewish practice, which in effect reinstates BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and racism.”
The restrictions placed on scientific cooperation with Israelis in Judea and Samaria were lifted under the Trump administration 3 years ago. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo found in 2019 that Jewish communities in the West Bank were “not per se inconsistent with international law.”
The Biden State Department used diplomatic language to explain that it sent “foreign policy guidance to relevant agencies (in the U.S. government) advising that engaging in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with Israel in geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after June 5, 1967, and which remain subject to final status negotiations, is inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.”
Essentially, the administration is saying that since the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria exist in territory that Palestinians claim is part of their hoped-for state, the U.S. will not participate in or fund scientific and technological research there.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen responded with diplomatic language of his own, saying, “I object to the decision and think it is wrong. In similar cases in the past, the Israeli government fully reimbursed parties damaged by such decisions.”
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was not as diplomatic in a statement issued late last week, writing, “The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live.” Cruz said the administration was “pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel.”
He added, “I will do everything possible to reverse this decision and prohibit such anti-Semitic discrimination by the U.S.government in the future.”
In reversing the Trump administration policy of cooperating on scientific and technological research in Judea and Samaria, Washington has realigned itself with the European Union, which has had a boycott policy in place for years.
The research cooperation ban extends beyond Judea and Samaria to include the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem.
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