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Spain Admits Error, Pays Israeli University in Discrimination Suit

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JERUSALEM, Israel  -- Spain awarded an Israeli university a sizeable financial sum, saying its decision to exclude the school from an inter-university competition was "illegal, null and void."

The university considers the award a victory over the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In 2008, the Spanish Ministry of Housing invited Ariel University to participate in a competition it sponsored, called Solar Decathlon Europe.  The competition was open to universities around the world who were invited to design a "Green House" that would supply its own energy needs, a press statement from the University said.

The same year, Ariel University's School of Architecture developed a project called the "Tent of Abraham," named after the biblical patriarch, which was chosen as one of the 21 finalists -- the only university in the Middle East to make the finals.

Then, on September 11, 2009, the Spanish government notified the university it had been expelled from the competition because of its location.

The university is in Ariel, the largest Israeli city in biblical Samaria, an area much of the world refers to as the "occupied West Bank," where Palestinian Arabs want to establish a future state.

As such, it has been the target of the BDS  movement, intended to brand Israel an apartheid state and therefore delegitimate. European governments and even the U.S. State Department have boycotted the school in the past.

CBN News visited Ariel University last year and discovered the school is actually a model for co-existence.  It has more than 14,000 Jewish and Arab students who study together in Hebrew without any problems.

In 2009, the Spanish government said, "…the fact that your institution is located in the occupied territories and since we are bound to respect the position of the European Union in relation to this matter, we are compelled to announce that it will not be possible for your center to continue in this competition."

The university filed a lawsuit in the Spanish courts and a Madrid court ruled in Ariel University's favor, saying the Ministry had discriminated against the university in the competition.

Following the court's decision, the Spanish Ministry admitted that excluding Ariel University was wrong and paid the university 70,000 Euros (about $76,000).

In response, the university's chancellor, Yigal Cohen-Orgad, said the decision proved that international efforts to boycott Israel can and should be thwarted.

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CBN News is a national/international, nonprofit news organization that provides programming 24 hours a day by cable, satellite and the Internet. Staffed by a group of acclaimed news professionals, CBN News delivers stories to over a million viewers each day without a specific agenda. With its headquarters in Virginia Beach, Va., CBN News has bureaus in Washington D.C., Jerusalem, and elsewhere around the world. What began as a segment on CBN's flagship program, The 700 Club, in the early 1980s, CBN News has since expanded into a multimedia news organization that offers today's news headlines