Texas A&M University will open a $6 million marine research center in Israel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Texas A&M University in February will open a $6 million marine research center in Israel in partnership with the University of Haifa, rather than a previously planned $200 million campus in Nazareth.

Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp said told The Associated Press that plans changed on the Nazareth-based “peace university,” intended to help bring Arabs and Jews together, after a meeting with former Israeli president Shimon Peres revealed that elected officials in Nazareth would shift the direction of the peace campus, Sharp toldThe Associated Press.

“We’re not going to put our name on something we didn’t have total control over,” Sharp said.

Sharp said the University of Haifa partnership is the beginning of a relationship with Israel that he expects will “grow exponentially.”

“They don’t call it ‘start-up nation’ for nothing,” he said.