Fulbright Follow-up

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, can I ask you about Fulbrights? I’m Ethan Bronner --

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, sure.

QUESTION: -- from The New York Times.

SECRETARY RICE: New York Times, right.

QUESTION: How are you? Three of the seven, we were told on Friday or on Thursday, maybe on Wednesday, that they were not getting out. They sent you a letter on Saturday --

SECRETARY RICE: Mm-hmm, yeah.

QUESTION: -- they sent me a copy of. And I was told by numerous Israeli authorities that they are big security risks, these three guys, but they won’t tell me what the security risk that they pose is. Do you feel that it’s right that they not go out? What have you talked to them about?

SECRETARY RICE: We – I’ve received the letter. We’re engaging Israeli authorities about it now. And it continues to be my belief that these – that all of the Fulbrights should be able to take up their fellowships. Look, I – we will talk to the Israeli authorities, but obviously, you know, we have procedures of vetting people for visas. And so we will continue to work with the Israelis, but it is – unless something comes forward that I don’t yet understand, it’s my view that these people ought to be able to take up their fellowships.

QUESTION: Because they did go through some kind of security procedure from the American perspective, didn’t they? There was a vetting form that was filled out for each of them?

SECRETARY RICE: Obviously, if we’re going to issue visas to people, we go through processes. And I just want to repeat, I consider it extremely important for these young people to be able to take up their fellowships. And unless there is something that I have not yet seen, and I don’t – you know, I don’t rule out that there may be some reason that we’ve not yet seen. But unless I see some other reason, I – we’re going to continue to work to try to get them help, because I would hope they can take their fellowships.

QUESTION: And then when I spoke with the Israelis, they said that they were sharing with you their concerns. Have they done that?

SECRETARY RICE: I’ve – the Ambassador’s been working on this. I have not talked to the Israelis myself directly about it, except to say that I consider it to be a very high priority to get this resolved.

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Oh My, What Have We Here?

It was reported that the American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.

But this is even more interesting:-

But when a query about the canceled Fulbrights was made to the prime minister’s office on Thursday, senior officials expressed surprise. They said they did, in fact, consider study abroad to be a humanitarian necessity and that when cases were appealed to them, they would facilitate them.

They suggested that American officials never brought the Fulbright cases to their attention. The State Department and American officials in Israel refused to discuss the matter. But the failure to persuade the Israelis may have stemmed from longstanding tensions between the consulate in Jerusalem, which handles Palestinian affairs, and the embassy in Tel Aviv, which manages relations with the Israeli government.

The study grants notwithstanding, the Israeli officials argued that the policy of isolating Gaza was working, that Palestinians here were starting to lose faith in Hamas’s ability to rule because of the hardships of life.

Of course, it could be that Fulbright is not a popular man in Israel:

"Israel controls the United States Senate."
Senator Fulbright
April 15, 1973,
CBS televison program Face The Nation

In 1963 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Fulbright claimed that five million tax-deductible dollars from philanthropic Americans had been sent to Israel and then recycled back to the US for distribution to organizations seeking to influence public opinion in favor of Israel. This statement led to friction with the organized Jewish community in the U.S.

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It was the late Sen. William J. Fulbright who first called Congress "Israeli-occupied territory."

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