Two months ago the State Department embarrassed Israel into allowing a number of students from Gaza travel abroad as Fullbright scholars. At the time the NYT reported:
The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.
Abdulrahman Abdullah received word on Thursday via an e-mail message in Gaza City that the American State Department had withdrawn his Fulbright grant to study in the United States.
Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected†to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.
A letter was sent by e-mail to the students on Thursday telling them of the cancellation. Abdulrahman Abdullah, 30, who had been hoping to study for an M.B.A. at one of several American universities on his Fulbright, was in shock when he read it.
Something about the reporting makes me think that it was the State Department that informed the NYT in order to ebarrass Israel. I can’t be sure of that, but that remains my suspicion.
The other day the Fullbnights were back in the news, 3 Fulbright Winners in Gaza Again Told They Can’t Travel
Four of the seven were cleared but three were told by Israel that they were security risks and could not enter the country. Skeptical American officials asked for details but said they only got broad accusations of links to Hamas; the officials still wanted to offer the grants. The consulate brought from Washington high-priced mobile fingerprinting equipment and sent several officials to the Israel-Gaza border to interview the three Palestinians on July 10.
Three weeks later, on July 30, all three were informed that they had cleared the security screening and were granted their visas.
Two days later, the visas were revoked although not before Israel allowed one of the grantees, Fidaa Abed, to leave Gaza to fly to Washington unaware of his changed status. He was informed at the airport that his visa was no longer valid, flown back to Amman, Jordan, and instructed to return to Gaza. He remains in Amman.
On Monday, the American Consulate in Jerusalem sent letters to Mr. Abed and the two other grantees still in Gaza saying “information has come to light that you may be inadmissible to the United States,†and therefore their visas were being revoked. In Washington, Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, declined to get into specifics, but said that the visas were revoked because “we got more information†about the grantees.
So Israel did additional checking and found information that made them judge the remaining three as possible security risks.
A senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Ms. Rice was very unhappy about how these cases had been handled and that a thorough review had been ordered to prevent a recurrence. The official added that the latest information about the three Palestinians was enough to give pause but that “we really have to scrub it and are now going to take a good look to see if it holds.â€
Well for one thing, the State Department ought not try to do end runs around an ally. According to the original story, the Fullbright candidates were allowed to appeal to Israel authorities and had not done so. The State Department instead opted to make the matter public and get Israel to review the cases by embarrassing Israeli authorities.
But despite the skepticism expressed by the official, my guess is that the State Department wouldn’t have revoked the visas this time without something rather convincing.
Israel Matzav:
Don’t hold your breaths waiting for Condi or anyone else at State to apologize.
Boker Tov Boulder emphasizes something that Israel Matzav does too. In the first paragraph the reporter, Ethan Bronner refers to the State Department’s reversal as “reneging” and comments:
And here’s the kicker – Ethan Bronner has the chutzpah to twist the story
Backspin notes an earlier Times editorial about the incident boasting of its role in getting the Fullbright candidates out of Gaza and asks:
What does this say about the way the MSM relates to Israel’s security concerns?
It also doesn’t speak well about the State Department’s concern.
The AP reported the latest like this:
After international pressure, US officials intervened to facilitate Abu Shaaban and several other Fullbright scholars to leave the coastal trip, only to later deny them entry into the US for apparent security reasons.
“apparent” Apparently that lack of concern runs through quite a bit of the MSM.
And Mere Rhetoric observes that the State Department is trying to engage with Islamists. Maybe the reason the State Department is so cavalier about Israeli concerns, is because they have no such concerns themselves.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad,
