An Israeli university has awarded an honorary degree to the president of the Jordan Red Crescent, a move that a university spokeswoman described as a rare touting of academic ties between Israel and an Arab nation.
The Ben Gurion University said it was recognizing Mohammed al-Hadid for a joint Israeli-Jordanian program in emergency medicine, which he helped establish, as well as for his two decades of humanitarian work with the Red Crescent and other agencies.
The award, which was announced on Monday, could cause trouble for al-Hadid in Jordan, where the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement rejects the country’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel and has published a blacklist of prominent Jordanians with ties to the Jewish state. Al-Hadid is not on that list.
In Amman, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Jamil abu-Bakr derided the award as an Israeli public relations ploy and said it could harm al-Hadid’s reputation.
“It is better to reject it,” abu-Bakr said, “because it will harm his good reputation among his family and people during his life and even after.”
Al-Hadid said he had no intention of rejecting the award and would accept it at the Israeli university next Monday.
“It is purely to honor my humanitarian work ... It is not political at all,” he said. “I consider this award as upholding tolerance and the culture of dialogue among people.”
Ben Gurion University’s main campus is in Beersheba in Israel’s arid south, less than 100km from the Jordanian and Egyptian borders and only about 40km from the Gaza Strip.
Partly because of its location, the university has a long history of working with Arab academics and students, university spokeswoman Faye Bittker said, though much of that work is under the radar.
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