U.S. aid cutoff to Palestine and to me
That the U.S. and Europe are halting aid to the Palestinian government comes as no surprise. The effort to make things worse for ordinary Palestinians is designed to destabilize Hamas, but I’m not sure the outcome will be the one the U.S. expects.
Right now I have a related, more personal State Department annoyance. I’ve been communicating for months with faculty at Birzeit University, who want me come to Ramallah next fall to help plan and evaluate curriculum and research in a new interdisciplinary Law and Society unit they’re establishing. My airfare and expenses would be paid for, we thought, through a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant (Fulbright recently approved me for these grants if a non-U.S. university proposes a project I can help them with). This was all very exciting. I’ve noted here before my interest in returning to the West Bank for a longer visit than last year’s.
It now turns out there’s a problem, though, as described in this email from Fulbright to Birzeit: “The program for Americans has been suspended since 2000 by the State Dept. Until the security situation is judged by State to be acceptable for Americans to live and work at Palestinian institutions, the program will continue to be suspended.”
I still hope to get to Birzeit at some point. If I could afford it, I’d just get there on my own and pay my own expenses, but in the meantime Birzeit is looking for some other funding source. Sounds like it won’t be the U.S.
