Ariel (Hebrew: אריאל‎) is an Israeli city located in Samaria on the West Bank of the Jordan River, founded in 1978. Received city status in 1998. It is one of the largest cities in the Judea and Samaria region.
The city has been called “Ariel” since its founding. Ariel is one of the names of Jerusalem.

Location
Ariel is located at an altitude of 570-730 m above sea level. The urban area administered by the municipality, about 1200 hectares, is only partly developed.
Ariel is about half an hour from Tel Aviv on the Trans-Samaria Highway.

History
In early 1978, a group of Israelis organized and decided to find a place in the hills of northern Samaria to create a new residential area. The group made a formal request to the government to allocate space for the construction of a new residential area and received three options from the Israel Defense Forces: the area near the “lonely tree” (later to become the village of Barkan), the area that would later become the village of Kfar Tapuah, and the hill near Kifl-Hares, which the local Arabs called “Jabel Mawat” (“Hill of Death”), because of the inhospitable terrain.
The settlers chose this place because of its strategic location on the route of a possible invasion of Jordanian troops in the direction of the center of Israel and the city of Tel Aviv. In the spring of 1978, part of the group set up tents on a selected hill; in August 1978, a total of about forty families lived there.
Initially, all members of the group went through a selection process in order to get the right combination of qualified adults and young families who would be psychologically ready to endure the new village from scratch, with limited infrastructure and without modern amenities. At that time there were no paved roads in that area. Water was brought periodically by tank trucks. Electricity was provided only by a diesel generator, since there were no electrical networks in this area either. The tents were replaced with prefabricated block houses that served as housing, a school, and a hospital. On September 1, 1978, the first academic year was officially opened at the village school.
As the community grew, diverse populations joined, including traditional Orthodox Jews, although the city retained its predominantly secular character. The city now includes fourteen synagogues of various branches of Orthodox Judaism.
The position of chairman of the Ariel municipal council, and then the mayor of the city, was held by Ron Nachman in 1977-81 and from 1985 to 2013. In the period 1981-1985, the mayor of Ariel was Jacob Feitelson. Following the death of incumbent Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman in January 2013, the City Council elected Eliyahu (Eli) Shwiro as Acting Mayor. As a result of the elections held on October 22, 2013, Eli Shviro was elected to the post of Mayor of Ariel.
In 2009, the city council decided that the city was named after Ariel Sharon. However, in 2010, a government commission dealing with Israeli place names decided that the city of Ariel would not be named after the former prime minister.
On September 29, 2014, a twinning agreement was signed with the city of Ceadir Lunga, ATU Gagauzia, Moldova

Statistics
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the population for 2016 is 18,717.
A significant part of the city’s population are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Ariel is the unspoken capital of Israeli settlements in Samaria.
Ariel is home to Ariel University (until December 2012, the “University Center of Samaria in Ariel”).

Legal Status
Ariel is located in the West Bank, occupied by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. Israel considers these territories disputed, the Arab countries and the UN – occupied. After the War of Independence and before the Six Day War, the territory of the “West Bank” from the point of view of the UN was occupied by Jordan, and from the point of view of Jordan it was its sovereign territory.
In 2004, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas stated “We are committed to national principles and … do not accept settlements such as Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel.”
In 2006, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated “… I want to make it clear that the Ariel bloc is an inalienable part of Israel under any circumstances… Ariel is Israel.”

Boycott cases
Ariel University is sometimes boycotted by Israeli and international academic organizations due to the legal status of the territory where city ​​is located.
In August 2010, 36 Israeli theater artists signed a letter in which they refused on principle to perform in the planned tour of Israeli theaters in the new cultural hall in Ariel due to the fact that the city is located in the occupied territories. After the “storm caused by the letter”, five of the signatories withdrew their signatures, accusing the organizers of “not being made aware of the goals and content of the call to boycott Ariel”, and two of them declared that they had nothing to do with this letter and their last names were used without their consent. Later, the letter was supported by about 150 Israeli scientists, who also refused to give lectures in settlements in the territories occupied by Israel. On August 30, a demonstration in support of the boycott of Ariel was held outside the Habima Theater with the participation of deputies from the Meretz and Hadash parties, the general secretary of the Shalom Ahshav movement Yariv Oppenheimer, writer Yehoshua Sobol and others. Newsru.co.il called this action an “ultra-left march”.
Prime Minister Netanyahu strongly opposed the letter, saying that “those who boycott Ariel will not receive funding” from the state, while Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat, “who also condemned the actors, said that at present the list of performances in the new Palace of Culture in Ariel was left without changes.” The mayor of the city, Ron Nachman, “accused the actors of duplicity, and also suggested that they engage in politics in the Knesset, and not in the theater.” 40 members of the Knesset signed an initiative, according to which “the disruption of the performance due to the boycott will entail the termination of state funding for this theater.” Economic observer Yehuda Sharoni, in an interview with radio station Kol Yisrael, stressed that those who supported the letter “by their actions cause enormous damage to Israel, which is forced to constantly fight against boycotts.” With a sharp condemnation of the boycott, the Legal Forum in Defense of Eretz-Israel issued. Volunteer activists also organized a motor rally under the mottos “Ariel is Israel” and “Artists are boycotting – the caravan is moving”, from the center of Israel to Ariel in order to support the Ariel people and to protest against the boycott.