An investigative report published Oct. 30 by the financial daily Calcalist in cooperation with The Public Knowledge Workshop reveals that Ariel University in the Samaria district is the beneficiary of massive state funding. In fact, it’s the best funded university in Israel, while other academic institutions are crippled by enormous deficits.

According to the report, since 2007, Ariel University has been given some 162 million shekels ($42 million) through various contractual engagements with state institutions, while other universities received far smaller sums, some negligible. For example, Hebrew University in Jerusalem got only 63 million shekels ($16.5 million) during those years, and Ben-Gurion University in southern Israel received the least of all at only 2.3 million shekels ($604,000).

Ariel University, formerly Ariel College, was accorded university status only four years ago under political pressure from the right. If it continues with its current growth rate and preferential funding, it could become Israel's biggest and richest university. Indeed, after the school was officially declared a university, a five-year plan was presented calling for massive development, including construction of a giant campus and student center with housing for 7,000 students.

Ariel University was founded in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Kedumim as a regional public college in 1983. In 1991, it moved to the settlement town of Ariel and offered academic studies under the aegis of the recognized university of Bar-Ilan. Former Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar was one of the main proponents of the push to turn it into a university. But Israel’s Council for Higher Education opposed the move, citing a lack of legal authority to fund and supervise institutions located outside the 1967 borders, known as the Green Line. The government then instructed Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, the commander of the central front that includes the West Bank, to appoint six people to serve on what was dubbed the “Council for Higher Education of Judea and Samaria.” This entity went on to recognize Ariel College as a full-fledged university, and Sa’ar then urged the heads of other Israeli institutions who opposed the move to “go embrace your little sister.”