The State Department has taken Fulbright scholarships away from eight students in Gaza, because of Israeli travel restrictions imposed on the Hamas-ruled part of the Palestinian territory.

Sounds like a PR disaster for Israel and the US due to the lack of cooperation among bureaucratic. The New York Times talks about "longstanding tensions" between the US consulate in Jerusalem and the embassy in Tel Aviv and also says that the Israeli defense department and prime minister's office disagree whether a Fulbright grant is a "humanitarian necessity."

How shall there be any economic and political development in Gaza as well as some pro-American sentiment, if students are not allowed to leave the Gaza prison strip? The New York Times also points out:

Some Israeli lawmakers, who held a hearing on the issue of student movement out of Gaza on Wednesday, expressed anger that their government was failing to promote educational and civil development in a future Palestine given the hundreds of students who had been offered grants by the United States and other Western governments.
"This could be interpreted as collective punishment," complained Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Parliament's education committee, during the hearing. "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."

Related posts in the Atlantic Review:

• More Iraqi Fulbrighters Seek Asylum
• Experiencing America: New Book by Fulbrighters
• Fulbright Workshop on Implementing a Digital Library for the Maghreb

UPDATE: Open Letter by Fulbrighters: Reinstate Fulbright Grants to Students in Gaza

The Petition Site: Help Palestinian Fulbright Grantees Get Exit Visas from Israel.

UPPERDATE: The BBC reports that the State Department has reinstated Fulbright grants. (HT: Omar)

Reuters:

Western Europe, which is the fourth most popular travel destination for Americans, has increased its share of Thanksgiving bookings this year by 9.5 percent, according to Travelocity data. Eastern Europe, where the dollar goes a bit farther than in cities like Paris and London, saw a 24.6 percent surge in its share of bookings, Travelocity said. U.S. airlines are seeing similar trends in international travel for the 12-day Thanksgiving holiday rush.

"A German orchestra will play Beethoven and Brahms in Tehran in a rare visit by a European ensemble amid tension between Iran and the West," writes The Washington Post:

The 60-member Osnabrueck Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Hermann Baeumer will perform Wednesday and Thursday as part of an exchange that saw the Tehran Symphony Orchestra perform to a packed hall last year in Osnabrueck. (...)
Some hard-line clerics say music comes between the faithful, and God and leads to impure thoughts, therefore being incompatible with the Shiite school of Islam that rules Iran. Secular songs were banned as un-Islamic, and in the early 1980s, police stopped cars to check tape decks and smashed offending tapes. In the 1990s, music gradually made a comeback in Iran under the then reformist president, Mohammad Khatami. Then in December 2005, the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a ban on Western music on state radio and television.

Do you approve of the German orchestra's concert as some contribution to possible change in Iran or do you disapprove because Iran should be isolated at this point because of its current policies and because musical exchanges won't lead to change anyway?

Despite his affinity for German culture, Janssen has hardly been welcomed with open arms. "I don't like having to play diplomat here," he complains. Many of the roughly 3,200 US students enrolled in foreign study programs in Germany share Janssen's experience. They are reluctant ambassadors, routinely taken to task by students and even complete strangers for the perceived offences of their government at home -- an affront that visiting students and academics from China, Russia and Arab countries rarely encounter.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary promised £7 tickets to the US and Southwest Airlines, the American pioneer of no-frills travel, signalled its intention to start flying to the UK. The prospect of cheap flights from London to New York will revive memories of Freddie Laker’s ultimately doomed challenge to the flag carriers 30 years ago. However, liberalisation of air travel through last month’s “open skies” agreement promises to revolutionise transatlantic travel. Ryanair, Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier, yesterday unveiled plans to offer flights to Baltimore, Rhode Island and New York for as little as 10-12 euros each way, but the service is likely to face stiff competition.

Do NOT:
1. Assume that your typically understated demeanor will be recognized and admired by your American colleagues.
2. Politely respond to the question "how are you doing?" with a brief "fine, thanks" and walk away shyly without engaging in much further dialog.
3. Try to exaggerate an overseas experience for dramatic effect. Or, for that matter, underestimate the intelligence of your American companion.
4. Seize every point an American colleague is saying in a debate by analyzing and deconstructing his/her sentence structure word-by-word and pointing out the flaws in his/her logic
5.  Hold back on sharing fairly intimate/personal stories on a first meeting.
6. Assume that anyone who is on some kind of anti-depressant or who has been on one/several is insane and that you shouldn't talk to them.
7. Assume that every American is pro-war in Iraq.
8. Assume that because wealth is greatly admired and sought after in the United States, your inherited wealth will be similarly admired.
9. Draw parallels between European pre-industrial revolution colonialism and America's post-world war II involvement in world economies and politics.
10. Make assumptions about America or American people based on what you have seen on Hollywood movies.
11. Assume that once you've been to one part of America you know it all.
12. Be afraid to ask for a pay rise.

A New York City couple known only by the names Danny and Nina are running a contest on their Web site,  dannyandnina.com, in which visitors vote on where the pair will live for a year. The two promise to relocate to the first American metropolis on their long list that gets a million votes. With nearly 600,000 votes, guess which town is leading the balloting? Plano. It's not a compliment. Plano rocketed to the top of the list after a German television program encouraged viewers to visit the Web site and punish the New Yorkers by sending them to live in Texas. As "Lyzia," a German commentator on the site's message board, put it, "The reason why we [Germans] want them to move to Texas is ... cruelty.