Communicated: TefillaChillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.
tell a friendA U.S. embassy official denied that it did not invite students from Ariel University to President Barack Obama’s speech in Jerusalem next week because the institution is located in Samaria, which the United States considers an illegitimate and illegal settlement.
The speech, set to take place at the Jerusalem Convention Center next Thursday, on the second day of Obama’s visit to Israel, will be open to some Israeli students. But the exclusion of students from the university in Ariel has led some to accuse Obama of boycotting Israel’s newest accredited university, where several hundreds Arabs learn alongside Jews.
An official at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv told JTA that only students from academic institutions with partnerships or joint programs with the embassy were invited to the speech. The official would not comment on whether other institutions fell in the same category.
Israel plans to exercise sovereignty over the city of Ariel, where the university is located, in the event of a final-status agreement.
Ariel, a settlement with 20,000 residents in the northern West Bank, has historically been a sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Israel has seven universities and a myriad of private colleges.
Students at Ariel expressed dismay at their exclusion from the speech.
“We were pretty shocked about the discrimination and the way in which they are giving up on a university in Israel,” said Ariel University Student Union head Shai Shahaf, according to Yediot Acharonot’s website.
Shahaf and other Ariel students plan to protest outside the speech unless the United States changes its decision.
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Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/us-denies-obama-boycotting-ariel-u-students/2013/03/14/
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another waste of breath she is
I believe the embassy and explanation.
They are incompetent. If the university presidents (which are receiving generous subsidies from the Israeli government who opposed the certification of this university) want to prove to the world that cannot political hacks with a self-serving agenda, they should say: “either we all get invited when nobody comes”.
I have long been dismayed at the cowardice displayed by too many Israeli officials.
As long as you don't stick up for your rights, you will be hung separately.