HOUSTON — When Gov. Rick Perry visits Israel this week, he will leave a surprising piece of Texas behind: his alma mater, Texas A&M University.

Mr. Perry will join Texas A&M leaders and Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Wednesday to announce the creation of Texas A&M Peace University, a branch campus of the sixth largest university in the United States. It will be built in Nazareth, known as the Arab capital of Israel.

Numerous American universities have opened outposts in the Middle East and around the world in recent years, including New York University, which has a campus in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. But if Peace University comes to fruition, it will represent a first for both Texas A&M and Israel: No other American university has opened a branch campus there.

Texas A&M is the alma mater not only of Mr. Perry, but of the country music star Lyle Lovett, former Mayor Henry G. Cisneros of San Antonio and other Texas figures. It opened in 1876 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and students and alumni still proudly declare themselves Aggies and take pride in a sort of can-do, hyper-Texan aura, even as the university has sought to expand its international reputation. In 2003, it opened a campus in Doha, Qatar, that offers engineering degrees.