By RS: This isn’t a new story, but it is one that I’ve not heard before and I wanted to bring it to your attention. Apparently our own US State Department is boycotting an Israeli University all because it exists in the ‘West Bank’, according to CBN News:

But while BDS is sweeping Europe, it is slower to take hold in the U.S. Roth says that’s in part because Europeans become intoxicated by ideas while Americans tend to fight back.

The Presbyterian Church USA ended business connections in Israel, and the U.S. State Department boycotts cutting-edge cancer research at Israel’s Ariel University because it’s in Samaria — or the West Bank.

That quote is from today’s report by CBN News on the spreading of the BDS movement. It’s definitely worth watching.

CBN News has also reported on this in April:

The university’s home is Ariel, what some call a “West Bank settlement” in territory Palestinians want for a future state. It’s also part of the land promised to the Jewish people in the Bible as an eternal inheritance.

That has led to boycotts of the university by European governments and the U.S. State Department, [Professor Aharon Friedman] said.

…

Despite its cutting-edge research, pastoral setting, and quiet campus life, some in the international community see Ariel University as a controversial place.

“We don’t have problems with other universities and research institutes,” [Chancellor Yigal Cohen Orgad] said. “We have real problems with many governments. First of all in Europe and part of the American government, i.e., the State Department, that tries to boycott us formally or informally.”

Why? “Because they think we don’t have the right as Jews to live here in Samaria,” Orgad told CBN News.

As I said, this isn’t new. This was reported in 2013 by Free Beacon on Obama’s trip to Israel where the US Embassy refused to allow students from Ariel University to attend the president’s speech:

President Barack Obama’s keynote speech in Jerusalem next week became the subject of controversy today amid reports that students from a major Israeli university located in a West Bank settlement were not invited to the event.

The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv issued invitations to student delegations from Israel’s universities, according to the Times of Israel. But Ariel University, a 14,000-student school that has previously been the target of anti-Israel boycott campaigns, was reportedly not included.

“President Obama may not understand just how damaging it will be if he boycotts Israeli students just because of where they go to school,” said Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel. “Even Israelis who oppose settlements and admire President Obama will be deeply uncomfortable with him excluding an entire class of their fellow citizens from hearing a speech that is supposed to represent the president’s direct and open engagement with the Israeli people.”

Students at Ariel University say they will protest the decision.

It goes back even further, but I think you get the point. So because this university exists in Samaria, otherwise known as the ‘West Bank’, the US State Department wants nothing to do with them, even if it means learning about cutting edge cancer research.

But hey, Obama is the closest thing the US has ever had to a Jewish president, right?