Palestinian Fulbrights Stranded in Gaza

Tall and clear-eyed, Zohair Abu Shaban, has an air of linear correctness about him. There's no mistaking him for anything other than an engineer. He also looks like he'd fit into any American campus. And that's what he thought, too. Because of his fine grades, he was one of seven male and female students from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza to be awarded a Fulbright grant –-the premier American scholarship-- to study in the U.S..

But when he tried to leave Gaza earlier this month, Abu Shaban claims he was taken into an Israeli interrogation cell at the Erez checkpoint and told that he must work as an informer in Gaza, dishing dirt on his family members, his neighbors and his university colleagues. " The Israeli told me that If I didn't agree, I had to go back to Gaza and give up my dreams of studying in the U.S. forever." He added, "In other words, he tried to blackmail me."

Abu Shaban refused, and he was sent back to Gaza. His case and those of two other top Gaza students --Omar Dawoud and Fida Abed-- who were also refused exit from Gaza, despite the fact that they were given security clearance by the U.S. Homeland Security agency, has outraged academics and human rights activist. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is personally lobbying with the Israelis to secure their release from Gaza.

The seven scholars were initially told by U.S. diplomats that the Israelis banned their passage out of Gaza. But after the New York Times wrote about it, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice then personally intervened, and the Israelis agreed to let four of them out.

So why were Abu Shaban, Dawoud and Abed denied passage, and the others allowed out? Those are details that Israeli security officials so far have refused to share with American diplomats, and certainly not with the three Palestinian students.

When I met with the trio in Gaza last week at a seaside cafe, they told me they could only hazard a guess. "All three of us went to the Islamic University, and the other four didn't," says Abed. Several professors close to Hamas teach at the Islamic university but, as Dawoud says, there are 23,000 students on its campus. "It's the only university in Gaza where we could study engineering. None of us are connected to Hamas, or politics."

"It's collective punishment to brand all students there as Hamas people. We care about learning and getting good grades," protested Abed. :"Not politics."

The State Department is still negotiating with the Israelis over the student's plight. For their sakes, I hope that Ms. Rice has better luck with the three Fulbright scholars than she's had with the removal of illegal Israeli outposts inside Palestinian territories.

At first I was hesitant to write about Abu Shaban and the others. I wasn't sure how the Israeli security apparatus would react. All it takes is some easily offended bureaucrat to take this as a personal slight and put the stamp of “National Security” on the students' dossiers. If that happens, all of Ms Rice's good intentions are for naught.

“It would be wonderful if we get out of Gaza,” says Abu Shaban. “But we're not the only ones. There are still 700 students in Gaza who have places waiting for them in universities outside. And none of them can get out.” With no jobs inside Gaza, and no way to escape, it's not surprising that a few of these frustrated students may want to join the boys with the guns. Is that really what Israel wants?

By Tim McGirk/Gaza