Yes, Israel should be providing COVID vaccines for Palestinians
COVID-19 vaccine being delivered at a Jerusalem vaccination centre, 24 December 2020
Ran Goldstein writes in +972:
Members of Israel’s Foreign Ministry must have rubbed their eyes in disbelief this past week. One after another, foreign media outlets began publishing articles praising Israel for its national COVID-19 vaccination program. “Israel leads vaccine race,” declared both France24 and the BBC. Bloomberg ran an op-ed titled “Vaccination miracle brings Israel back to its roots.” The peak came with the New York Times, which compared the U.S. government’s disastrous response to the pandemic to that of Israel, under the headline: “How Israel Became a World Leader in Vaccinating Against Covid-19.”
From a distance, the emerging image of a functioning public health system being deployed across Israel and fulfilling its intended role certainly seems like something to be proud of. But upon closer examination, one begins to see the shortcomings, including a third full nationwide lockdown, and administering vaccines to hundreds of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office staff regardless of whether or not they are in at-risk groups or critical workers.
There is one big flaw, however, that cannot be covered up, even from a distance: Israel will not be inoculating the nearly 5 million Palestinians under its effective military control in the occupied territories, even as Israelis living in settlements are getting vaccinated.
According to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, Israel covertly transferred dozens of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the Palestinian Authority this week, though the Palestinian Health Ministry has denied these reports. Instead, Palestinians are expecting to be vaccinated through COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing alliance. They are also hoping to receive some doses of the UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. When or how these campaigns will take place is still unclear, though.