Friday, July 31, 2009

But What's A "Palestinian" Exactly?

Is "Palestinian" a definition of a geographical residency?

Or religion?

Or ethnicity?

Or race?

Or national status?

"Palestinian" like in here, the very last line:

Abraham Lincoln Incentive Grants Program West Bank/Gaza 2009-2010

Investing in the Future of Young Palestinian

AMIDEAST is now accepting applications for the Abraham Lincoln Incentive Grants Program, funded by the United States Department of State through the Middle East Partnership Initiative and the Consulate General in Jerusalem. The program will provide grants (financial assistance) to promising, academically qualified but economically challenged students who will be in grade eleven in the academic year 2009/2010 from both Gaza and the West Bank to assist them in competing successfully for scholarships to pursue their undergraduate studies in the United States. The program will assist the selected students to become competitive applicants for U.S. college and university admissions and scholarships.,,

AMIDEAST will provide students with the following range of educational advising, test preparation and testing services:

o Two hours of private, customized one-on-one advising consultations
o Two hours of in-center internet use each week
* College Application & Essay Writing Workshop (18 hours)
* Test Preparation Courses for iBT/PBT TOEFL and SAT I ( 30x2 hours) in addition to Online Practice Tests for iBT-TOEFL and SAT I
* Payment of application fees at up to six U.S. colleges or universities.
* Visa application fees, SEVIS fees and travel allowance for visa interview at the U.S Consulate General in Jerusalem, if admitted to a U.S. university.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
...a student must meet all of the following requirements:

* My family is unable to meet the costs of applying to a U.S. college or university
* Be a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza Strip


Can I ask any lawyers out there: can a Jewish resident of one of these areas apply? And if not, is that discrimination? You know, like in...racism?

12 comments:

yoni said...

can't you just copy and paste the part you want to point out and post a link to the rest? who wants to read all that crapola? i'm sure there's an intelligent reason for your doing it this way, i'd love to know what it is.

yoni said...

i mean in general, not just here. why post the whole article, especially when all you're doing is pointing out how stupid it is?

yoni said...

you post so frequently that with the length involved in unecessarily showing us huge chunks of mostly meaningless texts, i'm getting burned out from all the scrolling required just to keep up.

i figure it's your job to go through the meaningless texts and pull out the interesting bits so we don't have to. you know, like a blogger? is this some kind of integrity issue for you? i'm new here, and i'd like to stick around, but you're wearing me out.

Risa Tzohar said...

You're right, of course, but look on the bright side - the more of them that go to the US, the less there are here.

YMedad said...

Yoni, I'll try to be more...pithy. But I'm sure someone will say "give more of the background".

Risa, yes, that is a consideration but I just hate being discriminated against, especially by the US and even more especially by left-wing Democratics led by a Black President who is really half-white.

yoni said...

my scrolling finger thanks you. your excellent blog will be even better for it, you'll see. and no one will be able to complain about background as long as you continue to provide a link to the original text.

Anonymous said...

This is an excellent question --

I think it is worth raising, for no other reason than it helps focus world attention on an issue that most people overlook or never address.

The US government officials will have no difficulty in defining a Palestinian to be an Arab (Christian, Druze or Moslem, but not Jewish) residing in Trans-Greenlinia (i.e West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza). Arab Israelis are excluded as are West Bank/Gazan Jews. As to whether this would constitute illegal discrimination, the answer is probably "no," for the reason that the classification adopted in the USAID announcement would be considered not only "rational," but a racial/ethnic/religious classification that would serve a compelling governmental interest in the foreign policy field (and narrowly tailored to promote that interest) and therefore legally supportable.

Unknown said...

Mr. Medad, so you consider yourself a Palestinian resident of the West Bank.
That's new.
In this scenario, you'll be more then happy to receive Palestinian citizenship once the Palestinian state is established.

Anonymous said...

Now you're getting a taste of the Affirmative Action crap we have in America for Blacks.

Michael Cohen said...

Martijn: There is nothing new here. Until the establishment of the state in 1948 and the naming of it by Ben-Gurion, Jews were referred to as Palestinians and Arabs were Arabs. The term "Israeli" is what is new.

When 'ol Yasser was having his first farce (read: elections) and they were setting out the rules - they very clearly included any residents of certain areas UNLESS they were Jewish by religion - not Israeli by nationality...

Some of us actually considered running for their parliament to see what would happen (we were youg, stupid and of course, single...)

YMedad said...

This is an excellent question -- and I think it is worth raising, for no other reason than it helps focus world attention on an issue that most people overlook or never address. The US government officials will have no difficulty in defining a Palestinian to be an Arab (Christian, Druze or Moslem, but not Jewish) residing in Trans-Greenlinia (i.e West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza). Arab Israelis are excluded as are West Bank/Gazan Jews.

As to whether this would constitute illegal discrimination, the answer is probably "no," for the reason that the classification adopted in the USAID announcement would be considered not only "rational," but a racial/ethnic/religious classification that would serve a compelling governmental interest in the foreign policy field (and narrowly tailored to promote that interest) and therefore legally supportable.

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