Wednesday, August 06, 2008

SCHOLARLY SECOND THOUGHTS

This is interesting:
Three Palestinians who won prestigious scholarships to study in the United States have had their American entry visas revoked after “new information” was received about them, a U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday. [Reuters]
What’s interesting is that these three were among a group of Gazan students who, back in June, had been awarded Fulbright scholarships to study in the United States. When Israel initially refused to allow the students to travel to Jerusalem for preliminary interviews with U.S. authorities - travel of Gazans into Israel is tightly restricted for obvious reasons...can you say “Hamas”? - the Washington boys applied some gentle pressure, causing Israel to back off.

The papers played it as you might expect, with the help of the amazingly evenhanded, unbiased reporting of the AP. Nasty old Israel, keeping Palestinian students from getting an education. The nerve! The chutzpah!

Now it looks like the U.S. State Department folks are having second thoughts. Wonder how much play this’ll get in the MSM?

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