Sorry treatment on Yom Kippur

SIgn on a road to nowhere inside the "enemy entity"...

A graduate student and his young bride are two of several hundred academics who now are stranded in the newly-declared "hostile territory" of Gaza and may end up sacrificing their places and fees at international universities... not to mention their futures.
Tomorrow, when the Israeli Supreme Court opens for business after a break for the Jewish Day of Atonement, the case of Khaled Mudallal, a 22 year old business student at Bradford University, will be in the docket.
Gisha, the Israeli human rights activists, claim that the new restrictions for Gaza will violate international law by inflicting collective punishment. It has been a hard enough slog for Gazans this year, and those who got a toehold at foreign universities are being made to suffer, according to Don Macintyre of London Independent. Just like the mystery term "enemy combatants" which enabled the abuses of Gitmo, the rebranding of Gaza as hostile shows the desperation of bully governments who make up new terms as they blunder along-- semantics for survival. It's very Orwellian.

Mr Mudallal, who arrived in his home town of Rafah on 6 June had only intended to stay for a few days to collect his new wife, Duaa, and take her back to Britain. He and his wife – who graduated with distinction this year from university in Gaza and also hopes to study in Britain – have UK residence permits valid to November 2010.

Mr Mudallal's problems are compounded by having missed his first semester exams earlier in the year after he was delayed for two months by the closure of Rafah when he returned to Gaza in December 2006 to get married.

Although he arrived back half-way through the second semester he passed all his second semester exams and the university told him he would be able to carry on with his third year provided he first completed his first semester exams, as he intended to do at the start of the academic year next week. Gisha is pressing the Israeli military to let him leave through the Erez crossing.

Mr Mudallal, who did his GCSEs and A levels at Bradford Technology College while his parents were living in the city, said yesterday: "It's a disaster for me. If I cannot take the exams I may have to take another year and I don't know whether the university will let me do that."