Gaza students blocked from studying abroad by Israel

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

The prestigious Fulbright scholarship program awarded grants to seven Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip. Because of the blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel the students are not being allowed to leave.

Sisters Hadeel and Yasmin Abukwaik have dreamed of going abroad for postgraduate studies. In January they had a chance to flee Gaza when part of a wall along the Egyptian border was destroyed by Gaza militants.

Yasmin, 22, the younger sister joined thousands who fled before the breach was sealed. She is now studying X-ray technology in the United Arab Emirates. Her 23-year-old sister, Hadeel, took the risk and stayed so that she would be able to qualify for one of the few Fulbright grants for Gaza residents to study this fall in the United States.

There are very few that succeed in their dream to be able to leave Gaza to study abroad. There are hundreds of students who are frustrated after earning scholarships in the West who are unable to leave. Israel has blocked the Gaza Strip because of the militant group Hamas that runs the Strip.

Hadeel's gamble did not pay off as she has been notified by the U.S. State Department that she and six other Palestinians are having their grants withdrawn because Israel had not given them permission to leave Gaza.

After Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heard about it the State Department is now reviewing the decision and they are urging Israel to allow the seven students to travel to the United States. The Fulbright is the U.S. government's leading program in international educational exchange.

According to the Los Angeles Times Hadeel Abukwaik said in a telephone interview from Gaza City,

"I have sacrificed a lot for my dream. I am troubled, angry, confused. If this decision is not changed, what will I do? Wait in Gaza another year with no guarantee of getting out?"

When the Gaza Strip was was taken control of by Hamas last June, has almost closed its border crossings attempting to weaken Hamas and end the frequent rocket attacks aimed at Israeli towns. Israel has had the cooperation of Egypt in keeping the 1.5 million Palestinians enclosed in the tiny strip. Egypt is Gaza's other neighbor.

In the 2007-08 academic year there were more than 1,000 Gaza students that applied to study abroad and only 480 were allowed to leave. As of January Israel stopped granting permission altogether.

Defense Ministry lawyer Sagi Krispin explained at a hearing at the parliament's Education Committee,

that the Cabinet had declared Gaza "hostile territory" and decided that movement out of Gaza for humanitarian concerns would be limited to people seeking emergency medical treatment. Higher education, he said, is not a humanitarian concern.

The government was berated at the hearing by several lawmakers who feel that it is unfair to bright young Palestinians to not have the opportunity to acquire skills needed to modernize their society. They said that such a policy will not contribute to peace.

Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Education Committee, said,

"This could be interpreted as collective punishment. 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."

The committee has asked the government and the military to reconsider the policy and report back within two weeks.

According to an Israeli official the government is reluctant to adopt a blanket policy allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza to study for fear that Hamas would use the opening to send loyalists to the West Bank and create university-based cells to undermine the more moderate Fatah administration there.

But the official said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been receptive to special appeals by governments on behalf of Gazans seeking to study in the U.S. and Europe. The official said American diplomats had made no such appeal on behalf of the Fulbright scholars as of Friday afternoon.

That changed after Rice learned of the State Department's decision to "redirect" all seven scholarships set aside for the Gazans to Palestinian students elsewhere. Speaking to reporters in Iceland, she said she would look into the situation. By evening, U.S. diplomats were making calls to Israeli officials, a department official said.

Fulbright scholar Abdulrahman Abdullah, 29, said he viewed the late-hour U.S. lobbying as a small test of American influence over the Jewish state.

"The United States government is saying it will push Israel to allow us to create a Palestinian state by the end of this year," he said, referring to the goal of peace negotiations begun in November. "Am I to believe this if the Americans cannot even get Israel to grant me a permit to leave Gaza?"