Eliezer Rabinovici, a physics professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and chairman of the High Energy Physics Group, has been appointed vice president of SESAME, or, Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, an organization seeking to build a particle accelerator in Jordan.

Rabinovici, one of the project’s founders, was granted the position on Wednesday by representatives of the states participating in the project - including representatives of Iran as well as Palestinians, and will serve in the position alongside a second vice president from Egypt.

The SESAME project is the result of 20-years’ cooperation among Middle Eastern states aimed at founding a research center equipped with a particle accelerator in Jordan, to be built some 30 kilometers from the Allenby Bridge border crossing, near Al-Balqa University. The building that will house the research center has been standing since 2007, but the research facility itself has not been completed due to funding problems.

Israel, which recently renewed its fundraising efforts, has secured commitments of $5 million each from Turkey, Jordan, and Iran. Numerous European states participating in the CERN research center project, located on the border between Switzerland and France, have also made 5 million Euro commitments.

SESAME aspires to complete construction on the Mideast's first advance electron accelerator in 2016.

The Synchrotron is an electron accelerator used in various fields of study, including environmental studies, biology, chemistry, and archaeology. Electrons are passed through a circuit and exposed to high amounts of radioactivity, primarily x-rays. Dozens of such machines exist throughout the world, and are classified according to their energy output and the periods during which they were built. SESAME aims to build a generation 2.5 model in Jordan, similar to the advanced synchroton machines currently operated in Canada and Australia.

SESAME’s governing committee is composed of scientists from Israel, Iran, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, and Bahrain. Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, formerly the vice president of the CERN center, serves as the organization’s president. The U.S., Russia, Germany, Italy, China and Japan also participate in SESAME as observers.

"The project is an attempt by many scientists throughout the region to prove that it is possible to collaborate positively toward scientific goals that advance the interest of every state in the region,” Rabinovici told Haaretz. “The hope is that completing the construction will create an important research facility that will function on a very high scientific level.”