<p>U.S. cancels Fulbright study grants for 8 Palestinian students in Gaza
A State Department spokesman said Thursday that the scholarships were pulled because Israel will not grant the Palestinians exit visas from Gaza so they can travel to the United States to study at universities.</p>
<p>The eight Palestinians who won the prestigious State Department-sponsored scholarships will remain eligible, he said.</p>
<p>In the meantime the State Department decided to transfer the Fulbrights to recipients in the West Bank rather than lose them for the year.</p>
<p>It feels like there has to be more to this story than meets the eye. Condoleeza Rice is upset about it. Conflicting statements from the Israeli government (“We don’t grant exit permits for higher education.” “Yes we do.”). The line in the New York Times about ongoing tension between the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and the Jerusalem consulate is intriguing. Since this makes both Israel and the U.S. look terrible, it’s hard to believe it reflects either’s considered policy. So, maybe a massive bureaucratic snafu, maybe someone’s deliberate attempt to embarrass someone else.</p>
<p>My guess: the rescissions get un-rescinded, and the exit permits issued, by Tuesday.</p>
<p>It’s pretty ridiculous that they would take them away in the first place. At least ensure that they’ll receive them next year if the permits don’t go through for the current session.</p>
<p>It is reported on Monday that the U.S. has reinstated the Fulbright scholarships of seven Gaza Strip students blocked by Israel from leaving the Hamas-ruled territory, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
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<p>The students were informed Thursday that their scholarships for the upcoming academic year would be deferred because they couldn’t get out of Gaza, which Israel blockaded after Islamic Hamas militants seized power a year ago.</p>
<p>A letter dated Sunday from the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem said officials were working to secure exit permits so the students could continue the visa and university placement process.</p>
<p>“We are working very closely with the Government of Israel in order to secure its cooperation in this matter,” the letter said. Consulate officials would not comment Monday beyond confirming the letter’s authenticity.</p>
<p>What it really sounds like is that no one at the State Department bothered to ask, there was a disconnect between the military and the foreign office in Israel, and no one in either government who knew what was going on took a moment to ask himself “Are my bosses going to be happy with the way this makes them look when they read about it in the New York Times and Ha-Aretz?”</p>
<p>I guess this depends on which way your cynicism runs…mine says that Israel wanted to give the Gazan students the shaft, and the U.S. pressured them by going public with the story. But you may be right, since it is true that one shouldn’t ascribe anything to a conspiracy that can be explained by simple incompetence.</p>
<p>It looks like the IDF has a policy of denying exit permits for higher education, in order to give Gazan students the shaft. Most of those exit permits, of course, would be to universities in other Arab countries, some of which may well be breeding grounds for extremists. It also looks like the Israeli government has a practice of overruling the IDF on this on a case-by-case basis, but didn’t know there was an issue.</p>
<p>It doesn’t look like the U.S. publicized this. No one ever said, “We’re going to have to rescind the scholarships in 10 days if no exit permits are issued.” They sent e-mails to the affected students on Thursday, yanking the scholarships out of the blue. The press stories didn’t show up until Sunday, and they were all generated out of Gaza and Israel. The only American quoted (other than the e-mail itself) was the Secretary of State, whose reaction was essentially “We did WHAT?”</p>
<p>From that I take it that the issue was never taken up at any kind of policymaking, political level on either side. The Americans may not have been involved at all: How many U.S.-friendly countries these days require hard-to-obtain exit permits before allowing someone to leave? How many people in the sleepy Fulbright corner of the State Department are experts on this? They are probably great at dealing with U.S. Immigration, which 99% of the time is going to be the problem.</p>
<p>Hunt, I hope you’re correct, and all we have here is the usual bureaucratic incompetence that plagues modern nation-states and keeps in-boxes over-ful on desks around the globe. Another case of: left hand did not know what right hand wasn’t doing.</p>
<p>Does anyone recall last summer, when American citizens were flipping out because of delays getting new passports processed? Imagine a British citizen adding to the conversation last July by saying, along the lines of Post #7 above, “It is times like this when I am reminded why the creation of the United States of America was stupid.”</p>
<p>Upsetting for the Gazan students to receive those emails, though. It makes for a bad weekend. Glad it’s been straightened out now.</p>
<p>Hamas has absolutely no interest in facilitating students getting graduate degrees in the United States. Unless, of course, the students happen to be terrorist “sleepers”. If Hamas got behind this, it might be time to worry about it.</p>
<p>Hamas, as I understand it, is not at all the “official government of the Palestinians”. It is, among other things, an Islamist political party with a plurality (majority?) of Palestinian legislators. For a period of about a year, it officially controlled the Palestinian government, although most key functions remained under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas, an opponent of Hamas. Then there was a four-month long national unity government in which Hamas participated, which collapsed after Hamas effectively staged a coup in Gaza. I am ashamed to say that I don’t really have a firm idea of how the Palestinian government is organized today, except that Abbas and his secular Fatah party seem to control the West Bank and the official institutions of the government, and Hamas has illegal, de facto control over Gaza. </p>
<p>Israel keeps Gaza in a state of siege, in a so-far spectacularly unsuccessful effort to induce the public there to reject Hamas, or to get Hamas to moderate its positions and to cease its usurpation of the Palestinian government, or at least to get Hamas to stop its sympathizers shooting rockets daily across the border between Gaza and Israel.</p>
<p>This type of stuff is part and parcel of Israel’s 40+ year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. </p>
<p>I’m just glad the kids are going to be able to get out and study. Hopefully they will return and contribute to building a strong, independent, democratic Palestine based on the rule of law!</p>
<p>And let us hope that the rule of law they bring does not include daily rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians after Israel unilaterally withdraws from Gaza and dismantles all its settlements.</p>
<p>Let us also hope the Palestinian rule of law does not codify the articles in the Hamas charter that explicitly deny the right of the state of Israel to exist.</p>