At a hearing this week by the parliament's Education Committee, Defense Ministry lawyer Sagi Krispin explained that the Cabinet had declared Gaza "hostile territory" and decided that movement out of Gaza for humanitarian concerns would be limited to people seeking emergency medical treatment. Higher education, he said, is not a humanitarian concern.
That policy is under attack on two fronts in Israel.
Several lawmakers at Wednesday's hearing berated the government for denying bright young Palestinians the opportunity to acquire skills needed to modernize their society, saying such a policy will not contribute to peace.
"This could be interpreted as collective punishment," said Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Education Committee. "This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules."
The committee asked the government and the military to reconsider the policy and report back within two weeks.
Meanwhile, Israel's Supreme Court next week is to hear appeals by three Gaza scholarship students challenging the government's assertion that it has no legal obligation to allow them to travel abroad.
One of the plaintiffs, Wissam abu Ajwa, has been denied an exit visa five times. He said he and many other Gaza scholarship candidates wanted to return home after completing their studies and build a democratic Palestinian state.
"We are a valuable asset," said the 31-year-old chemistry graduate, who has been accepted to study environmental sciences at Nottingham University in England. Israeli and Western officials often emphasize the need for a modern economy in the Palestinian territories, he said, "but who will contribute to it? Are you just going to borrow expertise from Europe? It won't work."
An Israeli official said the government was reluctant to adopt a blanket policy allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza to study for fear that Hamas would use the opening to send loyalists to the West Bank and create university-based cells to undermine the more moderate Fatah administration there.
But the official said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been receptive to special appeals by governments on behalf of Gazans seeking to study in the U.S. and Europe. The official said American diplomats had made no such appeal on behalf of the Fulbright scholars as of Friday afternoon.
That changed after Rice learned of the State Department's decision to "redirect" all seven scholarships set aside for the Gazans to Palestinian students elsewhere. Speaking to reporters in Iceland, she said she would look into the situation. By evening, U.S. diplomats were making calls to Israeli officials, a department official said.
Fulbright scholar Abdulrahman Abdullah, 29, said he viewed the late-hour U.S. lobbying as a small test of American influence over the Jewish state.
"The United States government is saying it will push Israel to allow us to create a Palestinian state by the end of this year," he said, referring to the goal of peace negotiations begun in November. "Am I to believe this if the Americans cannot even get Israel to grant me a permit to leave Gaza?"
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boudreaux@latimes.com
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Times staff writers Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.
