GAZA STRIP: The Fulbright mystery

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Of all the questions surrounding Israel’s decision to lock down the Gaza Strip, the recent case of seven Gaza-based Fulbright Scholars presents a particular curiosity.

The issue became an international controversy in June when it was revealed that the State Department had canceled their scholarships because of the Israeli government’s refusal to let the students leave Gaza for their scheduled visa interviews at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

After the cancellations were made public, the State Department quickly reversed course and started publicly pressuring Israel to let the students out. Israel eventually agreed to let four of the students leave Gaza for their interviews but refused three others on unnamed security grounds.

Undaunted, Washington flew in specialized fingerprinting equipment and conducted the visa interviews for the remaining three at the Erez border crossing.

All three students received U.S. visas; one of them, Fidaa Abed, a 23-year-old accepted to study computer science at U.C. San Diego, even made it out of Gaza and boarded a U.S.-bound plane from Jordan.

Then something changed.

On Aug. 5, the State Department abruptly canceled the visas for the remaining three Fulbright students. Abed found out when he touched down in Dulles airport in Washington.

A security officer pulled him aside. “He told me, ‘I’m sorry, I just received a fax telling me your visa was revoked,’ ” Abed said.

Abed pleaded in vain for more information, but was put on the next plane back to Amman. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the visas were revoked after the U.S. “received additional information” about the students from Israel.

Back in Amman, Abed frantically contacted the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and the consulate in Jerusalem for more information. Officials at both offices expressed surprise and confusion, and Abed said one official in the Amman embassy told him he was “embarrassed” by the incident. But no one could tell him just what was the evidence against him that prompted the reversal.

“I have a right to know what’s the information they received about me,” said Abed, who’s now back in Gaza. “Where is the evidence?”

Maj. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said he only knows “what I read in the media” about the case.

At the very least, the timing of the Fulbright matter raises still-unanswered questions.

If the extra evidence reportedly revealed by the Israelis was so convincing that it compelled the State Department to reverse course in a matter of hours, then why wasn’t it provided earlier -- like before Washington went to the trouble and considerable expense of shipping in specialized equipment?

And if it’s so damning, why weren’t Abed and the others arrested when they showed up at the border? Why are they all allowed to roam freely in Gaza?

“If I’m a security risk, they should send me to prison,” said Abed, who wrote of his experience here.

Read more about Gaza students unable to leave here.

— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

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