What a bunch of retards:

A U.S. State Department-funded University of California program which provides business training for residents of the Middle East specifically excluded Israeli Jews - until Jewish journalists protested... Miriam Schwab uncovered the bias last week when she checked into applying to the university's San Diego branch Beyster Institute program for Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET). She discovered that the program was open to citizens of "Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel (limited to Israeli Arab citizens), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, West Bank/Gaza and Yemen."...

The MEET program ostensibly "does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, age, religion, national origin, or handicap."... Israeli Jews originally were excluded despite the program’s stated advantage as "an important cultural exchange." Fuller did not explain the initial "confusion" in barring Israeli Jews....

The US Embassy of Yemen online document which announces the program was down for more than a day until the words "limited to Israeli Arab citizens" were deleted... The US official who made the online edit, however, reposted the story in "track changes" format so that the document displays in the left margin, at the time of this writing, the words: "Deleted: Limited to Israeli Arab citizens."

We're going to make you click through to Yid With Lid to get the rest of the story - including where things stand now - and for screenshots of the incompetently-cleansed document. We're a little more interested in the legal ramifications. This appears to be a clear case of discrimination by a US government agency dedicated to advancing US interests in the Middle East. It's a near-perfect example of the soft, everyday institutional anti-Semitism of the State Department. A lot of people should be fired, and at least a couple of them should be sued.

The State Department will begin walking this back, and they'll no doubt insist that any applications from Israeli Jews will be treated fairly - treated fairly by the very same people who wrote an explicitly anti-Semitic application in the first place. So in addition to having a perfect example of institutional anti-Semitism, we'll no doubt be treated to a paradigm case of nudge-nudge wink-wink "no bias against Israeli Jews here" diplomatic pretense.

State Department culture is obviously a complex and multileveled thing, but it does seem to produce officials who reflexively denigrate Israeli Jews in order to suck up to Arabs and Muslims. Sure there's all the stuff about the peace process, but we suppose that's at least somewhat debatable. Less debatable: the time that they wouldn't accept Israeli aid for post-Katrina New Orleans because they were afraid it would piss off Arab and Muslim donors.

References:
* Univ. of Cal. Backs Down from 'No Jews Allowed' Program [INN]
* U.S. State Dept Funded "No Jews Allowed" Program [Yid With Lid]
* State Department Anti-Israel Ideology Gets Silly, Kills Americans [MR]

Previously:
* US Public Diplomacy, Tact Don't Extend To Israel
* US State Department: By "Shun" Terrorist Governments We Mean "Not Shun"
* US State Department: Lebanon Is Not Responsible for Hezbollah

Cross-posted to:
* Israpundit