From the Associated Press:
Under Israeli pressure, U.S. officials have quietly cancelled a two-year-old scholarship program for students in the Gaza Strip, undercutting one of the few American outreach programs to people in the Hamas-ruled territory. The program now faces an uncertain future, just two years after being launched with great fanfare by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a visit to the region.
The program offers about 30 scholarships to promising but financially challenged Palestinian high school seniors from Gaza and the West Bank to study in local Palestinian universities. . . .
In a statement, the American consulate in Jerusalem said it decided not to grant the scholarships over the summer after Israel said it would not permit the students to travel. “Because of the timing and risk of losing funding, available scholarships were awarded to other applicants,” it said. “We hope to include Gazan students in future programs.”
The scholarship program, administered by the non-profit group Amideast, is one of the few contacts between the U.S. and Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli advocacy group dedicated to increasing the free movement of Palestinians, said the case reflected U.S. unwillingness to confront a strong ally.
“It’s unfortunate and telling that the U.S. government cannot convince its closest ally in the region to allow its scholarship holders to travel from Gaza to Palestinian universities in the West Bank, for fear of clashing or making a diplomatic issue,” she said.
Hamas, meanwhile, has also jumped in. Last year, it barred seven high school students from travelling to the United States for a year of study under a U.S. program, citing worries over their supervision.
[Amal ] Ashour [who had her scholarship cancelled] said students like her are caught in the political battle and stand to lose the most.
“When I studied in America, I loved how you could travel from state to state without any borders. You live your life,” she said. “I can’t leave Gaza. Everyone — Hamas, Israel, everyone — is controlling us. We are just students. We don’t have anything to do with politics.”
Read the entire article here.
So students from Gaza suffer because the US is afraid to lay down the law to its embarrassing, recalcitrant “ally”. Israel, pipsqueak nation, controlling what the US can or cannot do.
Light unto the nation’s. Sure it is
Israel cannot prevent Gaza students from travelling, they can cross into Egypt and from there go to any country that permits their entry. Israel can however deny entry into both Israel and the West Bank. Not “allowing travel” and denying entry are entirely different subjects.
It’s time to get on board with an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. Ali Abunimah, http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/under-israeli-pressure-us-cancels-gaza-scholarships-showing-need-academic-boycott sums it up very well:
“It is in this context, where Israel thwarts Palestinian education from the earliest age through university, that Palestinian civil society’s calls for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions must be seen.
“Next time you hear someone oppose the academic boycott of Israeli institutions that are complicit in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people on the grounds that it somehow limits “academic freedom,” ask that person what their position is on Israel’s ongoing blockade of Palestinian education. And more importantly, ask them what they are doing about it.”
In Teh Evul Iran (TM), Iranian Jews were free to travel to Israel and return (don’t know about now given the US medieval siege). They would travel to Germany (typically) on their Iranian passport, to Israel and back using their Israeli passport, and return from Germany using their Iranian passport. Compare these vicious restrictions placed on Iranian Jews with the luxurious freedoms enjoyed by Israeli Palestinians living in the The One And Only True Democracy In The Whole Middle East (TM) (pat. pend.)