The New York Times May 30, 2008
'U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza'

The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them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

Some Israeli lawmakers, who held a hearing on the issue of student movement out of Gaza on Wednesday, expressed anger that their government was failing to promote educational and civil development in a future Palestine given the hundreds of students who had been offered grants by the United States and other Western governments.

"This could be interpreted as collective punishment," complained Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Parliament's education committee, during the hearing. "This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules." Rabbi Melchior is from the Meimad Party, allied with Labor.'


Comment by Daniel Levy (a Senior Fellow and Director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation and a Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation)

'These 7 bright youngsters make up just 0.000005% of the population of Gaza. What about the other 1.4 million Gazans living with collective punishment and under a closure that continues to have a devastating impact on every social, health and economic measure that one can imagine? And what about the 20,000 residents of the Israeli town of Sderot, and the neighboring communities, who are coming under frequent rocket barrage, including occasionally the town of Ashkelon, with its 117,000 residents? Where is American diplomacy?

....The Bush administration may yet get the seven Fulbright scholars out, and that would be great, but don't hold out hopes for the 1.4 million left behind or their Israeli neighbors'