Every day there are more articles about how Israel is not fulfilling its obligations under international law in providing vaccines for Palestinians. Israel haters keep adding to the libel in each new article.
The latest comes from Haaretz, written by Australian "human rights" lawyer Shannon Maree Torrens.
She says that Israel is not only not providing vaccines for Palestinians, but that it is actively blocking them from going to Palestinians:
As many around the world with the privilege of decision, autonomy and movement are debating whether or not to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them, for others the issue is not when they will receive it but if and how the vaccine will be made available to them.
Such is the case for the people of Gaza.
Why would anyone think that the people of Gaza won't ever get vaccines? The PA has been making deals and procuring vaccines just like every other country, and like most countries they have not yet arrived. But Torrens is saying that Israel won't even allow those vaccines to come:
It is one thing to blockade a people for supposedly security purposes, as Israel has done with respect to Gaza since 2007, which is already an inhumane act with little justification, but it is another level of deplorable behavior to then deny those who are occupied and blockaded a life-saving vaccine during a once-in-a-century pandemic that has killed over 1.9 million people worldwide.
Israel has never blocked medicines from the PA and Gaza. Never. But you know who has denied medicines to Gaza residents? The PA! And Hamas!
As far as I know, Ms. Torrens never said a word about that.
She then contrasts Israel with Australia and New Zealand:
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has secured enough vaccines to ensure that everyone living in the Pacific Island nations will be covered. Australia has also made plans to ensure access to the vaccine in the Pacific Islands – and neither New Zealand nor Australia are engaging in a military occupation of these Pacific Island countries.
Israel has vaccinated more Arabs, including Palestinians, than the total number of people vaccinated in Australia or New Zealand - which is at this moment, zero. It is a little strange to compare the two cases when the Pacific Islanders have no advantage, vaccine-wise, than Palestinians do.
But when you look deeper at New Zealand's and Australia's plans for their neighbors, you see that things are not so different from how Israel is acting.
Every New Zealand citizen will receive the vaccine for free. The excess doses will be distributed in the states within the New Zealand Realm—Tokelau, Niue, and the Cook Islands. New Zealand will also offer the vaccine to neighboring states Tonga, Samoa, and Tuvalu. These nations may choose to accept the vaccine.
New Zealand has some level of responsibility for the nations within the New Zealand Realm. For the others, it depends on whether they want the vaccine or not - like Palestinians, they make their own choice. Up until recently, every report says the Palestinians absolutely do not want vaccines from Israel. (That only seems to have changed when they realized the propaganda value of any Israeli delay.)
The Australian Government has also entered into Advanced Purchase Agreements with Astra Zeneca-Oxford and CSL-University of Queensland for over 84 million units of vaccines, which Australia is able to donate to partners in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, should these vaccines prove safe and effective, and units are available above domestic needs.
Just like Israel, Australia is prioritizing its own citizens before considering giving the vaccine to its neighbors.
By the definition of Israel-haters, this is "medical apartheid."
This hypocrisy is of course not the only ridiculous thing about this article. As with every other similar article, it doesn't mention that if Israel would provide the current Pfizer vaccines to Palestinians, they would all go to waste because there is not adequate refrigeration equipment. Israel is still waiting for the Moderna vaccines to arrive. Logistics drives decisions, not the pie-in-the-sky demands of clueless international human rights lawyers.
Torrens says
Torrens of course doesn't mention that her basic thesis is wrong: under the international law, the primary responsibility for providing health care in territories under occupation goes to local authorities, not the occupier. They should cooperate. Until now, there have been no reports that the Palestinians wanted to cooperate with Israel.
Plus, the idea that Palestinians are having their human rights violated by not getting vaccinations now - ahead of even modern nations like New Zealand and Australia - is completely unfounded. Palestinians will get vaccinated in 2021, ahead of many nations and behind others.
Torrens' libel is in saying that this is in doubt because of Israel. It isn't. And that is the most libelous accusation of all.
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Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a live television broadcast on Friday that he has told the government to reject British and American-made vaccines.
"Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are banned. I have told this to officials and I'm saying it publicly now," Khamenei said.
Why would Iran do that?
They are working on their own vaccine, that just started Phase I clinical trials, but those would be months away from being ready.
Khamenei tweeted that the American and British vaccines are "completely untrustworthy" and French vaccines "aren't trustworthy," either. (Twitter took that tweet down.)
Khamenei's fear seems to stem from a bizarre conspiracy theory about vaccines injecting GPS chips in people's bodies.
Al Arabiya reports that Iranian hardliner Hussein Kanani said on TV, "There is a lot of information according to which some vaccines inject electronic chips and implant a Global Positioning System (GPS) in our bodies to control all our actions and movements, to the extent that we become a human machine in the hands of others."
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It took nearly three weeks, but the Palestinian foreign ministry finally decided that the propaganda value of adopting the false anti-Israel positions of Amnesty, The Guardian and many others that Israel is somehow discriminating against Palestinians in COVID-19 vaccines outweighs the honor involved in Palestinian leaders taking responsibility for their own people.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates affirmed the duties of Israel, the occupying Power, to provide vaccines against Corona to the Palestinian people, while providing these vaccines to its citizens, ignoring its duties as an occupying power, and discriminating against the Palestinian people and denying them their right to health.
The Foreign Ministry added, in a statement issued by it, this evening, Saturday, that Israel is trying to absolve itself of its duties as an occupying power, and imposes full responsibility on the Palestinian government.
And she stressed that the State of Palestine is ready to fully assume its responsibilities and carry out its duties without compromise, which is what it was and is still doing in the face of the willful negligence and indifference of the occupying power, and the occupying power must only recognize its racial discrimination and its inability to implement its obligations and assume its responsibilities or to transfer it completely to The Palestinian government to do it, and towards Israel ending its colonial occupation of the land of the State of Palestine.
She emphasized that the Palestinian leadership’s search for providing vaccines from its various sources does not exempt Israel from its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people in providing vaccinations based on its duties based on the rules of international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and international human rights law as an occupying power.
The Foreign Ministry praised the positions of states, institutions, members of parliament, and legal and international figures who considered the violations of health apartheid practiced by Israel against the Palestinian people.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to pressure Israel to assume its responsibilities, especially Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which affirmed that the occupying power has a duty to ensure "the adoption and implementation of preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics," including these obligations to purchase and distribute vaccines to the people -the Palestinian who is under its prolonged military occupation, as well as presenting him to our brave prisoners in the occupation prison.
Notice that nowhere in this statement is the Palestinian government actually asking for Israel's help. The entire statement is meant to accuse Israel of "health apartheid" and "racial discrimination" but at no point do they say that they actually want Israel to provide vaccines, and how.
To re-emphasize:
* Under the Geneva Conventions, the PA has the primary responsibility for deciding how to fight the pandemic. Israel is obligated to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority in fighting the epidemic if they ask. They haven't asked, at least not publicly. (If the Palestinian Authority would refuse to help its own people, or if it did not have that ability, then Israel would indeed have that obligation. No one claims that their own plans for obtaining the vaccine within a few weeks is irresponsible or reckless.)
* Logistically, the Palestinian Authority cannot store the quantities of the Pfizer vaccine that Israel is using because of a lack of specialized refrigeration equipment, so this is moot.
* If Israel would unilaterally build its own clinics in Palestinian controlled territory, which is the only feasible way to do what Amnesty, the other NGOs and news media seem to be demanding, that would be decried as a "land grab" and "settlement activity." (Previous clinics that Israel has built for Palestinians in need were boycotted.)
* If somehow these obstacles could be overcome, most Palestinians would not want vaccines from Israel because of rumors that they would cause impotence or illness.
This press release is pure cynicism, a crude excuse to push an antisemitic lie of Jews discriminating against Arabs - even though more Arabs have been vaccinated in Israel than in any other country besides the UAE.
But the propaganda value of the Israel-hating NGOs relentlessly attacking Israel for weeks meant that the Palestinian government could not ignore the topic, even though it made clear multiple times that it can handle the epidemic itself and emphatically didn't want Israel's help.
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Israel closed the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron for ten days at the same time that it increased the lockdown in most of the country to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Even though Israel does not agree that the lands of Judea and Samaria are legally considered occupied, Israel's High Court of Justice usually applies the laws of belligerent occupation when deciding what is allowed in those areas. It is still important to understand whether Israel is adhering to international law of belligerent occupation, especially when prominent human rights organizations claim that it is violating those laws.
As we have shown, Israel is not obligated to provide Palestinians living in those areas with vaccines when their own leaders have indicated that they can handle the epidemic and the procurement of vaccines themselves. The local authorities are the ones with the primary responsibility of maintaining health. It is absurd to say that because Israel built an infrastructure to provide vaccines to its people before every other country on Earth that it must provide vaccines for Palestinians at the exact same time, especially when the Palestinian leaders do not want to get the vaccines from Israel and have been making arrangements to receive different vaccines that could be given to their people sooner than it would take to acquire the special refrigeration equipment the Pfizer vaccine needs.
The question of the Tomb of the Patriarchs is interesting because it is the flip side of the same question. In this case, the local authorities are against a health measure that Israel wants to enforce. In this case, does Israel have the right, or even obligation, to enforce health rules in opposition to the wishes of the Palestinians?
Once again, we see that Israel is following the Geneva Conventions.
The ICRC's commentary of same Article 56 that says that Israel must work with local authorities to ensure the health and safety of the population also says when Israel must override those authorities:
It will be remembered that Article 55 requires the Occupying Power to import the necessary medical supplies, such as medicaments, vaccines and sera, when the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate. It will also be able to exercise its right to requisition, and demand the co-operation not only of the national and local authorities but also of the population in the fight against epidemics.
The Palestinian Authority has the resources to acquire vaccines, but it is not cooperating with Israel in lockdowns. Israel has every right to force those lockdowns when the local authorities are unable or unwilling to.
To be sure, deciding when such a move is needed is often a judgment call. And there is one other part of Geneva that gives the Palestinians more considerations in this case:
In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.
The commentary says:
The last paragraph provides protected persons with a further safeguard, in that any measure of public health and hygiene the Occupying Power feels it should take in order to comply with the above stipulations must pay due regard to the habits and customs of the population (3).
The purpose of the provision is to ensure respect for sentiments and traditions, which must not be disregarded. The occupation must not involve the sudden introduction of new methods, if they are liable to cause deep disquiet among the population. The provision should be compared with Article 27 [ Link ] , which requires the Party to the conflict to respect, in all circumstances, the religious convictions and practices of protected persons, and also their manners and customs.
In this case there is a tension between the requirements of ensuring the health and safety of the population and that of respecting religious practices. But even here the language of what Israel may do to fight an epidemic is much stronger than the language of respecting local religious customs - the former is a requirement, the latter is something that must be taken into consideration.
Mahmoud al-Habbash, advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas on religious affairs and Islamic relations, described Israel's lockdown of the holy site as an inclusive war crime, saying that banning worshipers access to the site could fuel the sentiments of Muslims around the world.
Also instructive is the reaction of Hebron's Jewish community to the shutdown. The site is at least as holy to Jews as it is to Muslims, yet their reaction to not being able to enter the site is the opposite of the Palestinians':
COVID-19 UPDATE - Tomb of Patriarchs closed starting Friday, January 8. Prayers outside: 4 sections, 10 worshipers each, total of 40 worshipers. We pray for all affected by coronavirus. Together we will pull through.#Hebron#coronavirus#Lockdown3#Quarantinepic.twitter.com/s7EMC6VUy6
— Jewish Community of Hebron - Hebron Fund (@TheHebronFund1) January 7, 2021
After all, there is no greater religious obligation than saving lives.
Once again, Israel is scrupulously adhering to international law, while it is being falsely accused of violating that law. And once again, the accusers don't care about the laws themselves, but in how to twist the laws in ways that demonize Israel.
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We have been inundated the past couple of weeks with the claim that Israel must, under international law, provide vaccines to Palestinians at the same time it is providing them to Israelis.
One example is the new letter from 15 "human rights" NGOs which says, "Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically provides that an occupier has the duty of ensuring 'the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics'. This duty includes providing support for the purchase and distribution of vaccines to the Palestinian population under its control."
If we assume that the Palestinian areas are occupied - something that I disagree with - the question is, are these critics accurate? What exactly does international law say?
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.
The bolded part is not in the NGO letter, and for good reason: it is critical and contradicts what Amnesty, B'Tselem and the others claim.
The reference in the Article to "the co-operation of national and local authorities" ...shows clearly that there can be no question of making the Occupying Power alone responsible for the whole burden of organizing hospitals and health services and taking measures to control epidemics. The task is above all one for the competent services of the occupied country itself.
This is crystal clear - even in cases of belligerent occupation, the primary responsibility of health care goes to the local medical professionals. In this case, obviously, that would be the Palestinian Authority.
It is possible that in certain cases the national authorities will be perfectly well able to look after the health of the population; in such cases the Occupying Power will not have to intervene; it will merely avoid hampering the work of the organizations responsible for the task.
Which is exactly what is happening. The Palestinian medical infrastructure is decent. If they need help from Israel, there is no reason to think that Israel wouldn't help out. Israel was praised even by the UN on how well it has cooperated with the PA during the pandemic even while the PA spread conspiracy theories, why would anyone besides antisemites think otherwise?
It will be remembered that Article 55 requires the Occupying Power to import the necessary medical supplies, such as medicaments, vaccines and sera, when the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
In this case, the local resources have been making arrangements to buy their own vaccines. They will probably have to wait until February, but in that sense they are no worse than most of the nations of the world. Israel paid double or triple the regular price of the vaccines it has procured specifically to get to the front of the line, any nation could have done the same, but practically the entire world has chosen to wait and purchase them at regular prices. (Plus, logistically, the PA couldn't use the Pfizer vaccine that Israel is vaccinating its citizens with anyway because they don't have the proper refrigeration equipment.)
If the Palestinians waiting for a few weeks for the Moderna or Astra Zeneca or Sputnik vaccines is a violation of human rights, then most of the world is having their human rights violated.
At any rate, claiming that Israel is somehow responsible for bringing the vaccines to Palestinians at the same time as Israelis is not supported at all in international law. Nor does any international law say that an occupier must prioritize taking care of the citizens in occupied territories before providing for its own citizens.
Obviously, if there is a major breakout of a much deadlier strain in the Palestinian territories, it is in Israel's self-interest to work with the Palestinian Authority to help them - just as they cooperated with them last spring, before Mahmoud Abbas decided to cut all ties - including medical! - with Israel.
The bottom line is that international law of belligerent occupation says that if Israel is the occupying power, it must act with the local authorities to ensure the health of the population. Which is exactly what Israel has been doing since the initial outbreak. The only party that refused cooperation was the Palestinian Authority from around June to November. If they ask for help, they will get it.
And anyone who implies otherwise is either ignorant or bigoted.
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Despite that fact, and in opposition to the politically correct thinking that people should be able to define how they are labeled, most media refer to Arab citizens of Israel as "Palestinian" by default.
The Guardian:
The Washington Post:
Al Jazeera:
I don't agree with this terminology, and neither should any liberal. It makes it sound like some citizens of Israel are not really Israeli. It promotes division and discrimination. People who prize equality should abhor "otherizing" certain parts of the population.
So why does the major media consistently use this terminology that is both wrong and offensive to most Arab Israelis?
They do it exactly because it helps promote an anti-Israel narrative that Arab citizens of Israel are discriminated against. It pushes the agenda that Israel hates Palestinians both within and without Israel. It subtly tells readers that Arabs in Israel are not really Israelis and one day they will be free o fbeing forced to live in a Jewish state.
Yet recent headlines from these same major media outlets, about COVID-19 vaccinations in Israel, have flipped the script. They use the word "Palestinians" to refer only to Arabs under Palestinian rule, and not Israeli Arabs who are obviously getting vaccinated in Israel.
The Guardian:
The Washington Post:
Al Jazeera:
Suddenly, Palestinians are only a subset of what these newspapers usually call Palestinians!
If these newspapers were consistent, these headlines would be outright lies - no one denies that Israel is working hard to inoculate "Palestinians" who live in Israel. Clearly, in this context, "Palestinian" cannot mean Arab Israelis.
But there indeed is a consistency here.
When it helps them to bash Israel, Arab Israelis are "Palestinian." And when it helps them to bash Israel, only Palestinians under Palestinian rule are "Palestinian."
Media bias is sometimes subtle and insidious, but once it is pointed out, any fair person would see how outrageous it is.
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A couple of weeks ago, a series of NGOs including the Amnesty, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'Tselem and even two Palestinian human rights organizations issued a press release demanding that Israel provide vaccines for Palestinians.
They use poor arguments, most of which I debunked in last night's webcast, but one of them deserves more attention - because it shows how bigoted these groups are against Palestinians.
We express grave concerns about media reports that the Russian-developed vaccine will be delivered to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA has not fully indicated which vaccines it aims to purchase and distribute, although it has made clear that it does not have sufficient funds and capabilities to purchase the necessary vaccinations. Israel cannot transfer a vaccine which is not approved for its own citizens. Such a step would violate the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations and the long-standing policy of the Israeli Ministry of Health to only allow the distribution of medicines in the OPT which have undergone the necessary scientific and regulatory procedures. Although the Paris Protocol has come under criticism in the past for, inter alia, obliging the PA to import medications that are beyond its financial reach, as long as it is binding, Israel cannot import a vaccine that it has not approved for its own population and send it to the occupied population. Israel must ensure that the vaccines delivered to Palestinians in the OPT, also meet the approvals of the Israeli health system, and that these vaccines be purchased and delivered as soon as possible.
...Both sides will maintain the same import policy (various exceptions) and regulations including classification, valuation and other customs procedures, which are based on the principles governing international codes, and the same policies of import licensing and of standards for imported goods, all as applied by Israel with respect to its importation. Israel may from time to time introduce changes in any of the above, provided that changes in standard requirements will not constitute a non-tariff-barrier and will be based on considerations of health, safety and the protection of the environment in conformity with Article 2.2. of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to trade of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations.
So even if this paragraph applies to importing medicines (which is not at all obvious) Israel can change the policy for maintaining public health!
Members shall ensure that technical regulations are not prepared, adopted or applied with a
view to or with the effect of creating unnecessary obstacles to international trade. For this purpose,
technical regulations shall not be more trade-restrictive than necessary to fulfil a legitimate objective,
taking account of the risks non-fulfilment would create. Such legitimate objectives are, inter alia:
national security requirements; the prevention of deceptive practices; protection of human health or
safety, animal or plant life or health, or the environment. In assessing such risks, relevant elements
of consideration are, inter alia: available scientific and technical information, related processing
technology or intended end-uses of products.
These very regulations referred to in the Paris Protocols say that Israel should not place any barriers in place to stop Palestinians from getting the medicines they need!
Clearly, when the Palestinians don't have ultra-cold freezers needed to stockpile the Pfizer vaccine , the Russian Sputnik vaccine seems like a viable alternative to help millions of their citizens. The Palestinian Authority has scientists and doctors that can look at the literature and see whether it makes sense to accept the Russian vaccine. Other countries like India have decided that the Russian vaccine is safe enough to rely on. One can argue about the decision, but is hardly irresponsible for leaders to choose the Russian vaccine in the interests of protecting the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.
But Amnesty and these other NGOs disagree with this. They want to take away Palestinian choice as to how to treat their own people!
If anyone else would say that Palestinians are too immature or too ignorant to decide on how their own health programs should work, they would be rightly considered to be bigots.
Beyond that, Amnesty and the other NGOs are saying that it is better for Palestinians to wait for Israel to build an entire infrastructure to distribute the Pfizer vaccine, or to wait to receive the Moderna vaccine, than to import the Sputnik vaccine today. Every day a couple of dozen Palestinians are dying of COVID-19 and Amnesty is saying that time is not of the essence to provide vaccines to them, even though the logistics of Israel providing the vaccines in Palestinian areas is enormously expensive and time consuming.
The NGOs even say it is Israel's responsibility to keep the medicines cold:
Ensuring smooth entry of vaccines and other medical equipment to the oPt, including preserving a 'cold chain’ to keep vaccines refrigerated during transit if necessary.
Ultra-cold freezers aren't exactly available at Best Buy. There are only a couple of manufacturers and they are swamped. It would take months to acquire an adequate supply of this equipment to bring into the territories, by which time there will be other vaccines available that do not require anything colder than a refrigerator.
This demand, by itself, shows how out of touch these NGOs are - and how willing they are to sacrifice Palestinians as long as they can blame Israel for their deaths.
There is only one conclusion that can be drawn: Amnesty and the other NGOs hate Israel more than they care about Palestinian lives. This demand, by itself, proves how hateful they are both towards Israel and towards Palestinians themselves.
To call these "human rights "organizations is a sick joke.
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Mrs. Elder and I discuss the absurd reporting from various news organizations that libelously claim or imply that Israel is withholding vaccines from Palestinians.
We talk about why they are wrong from the perspective of international law, existing agreements, and even how some of the demands are infantilizing Palestinians.
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By now, you have probably seen a chart like this showing how far ahead Israel is in vaccinating its citizens for COVID-19 per capita compared to the rest of the world:
This is due to a strong infrastructure where the security apparatus of the state has pivoted to provide virus protection. But part of it is also by having a centralized decision making process where, for example, leftover vaccines at the end of the day that would have been otherwise discarded (because of Pfizer's requirements that the vaccine is kept in ultra-cold temperatures and they cannot be re-frozen) are being used for people who would otherwise not qualify for the first round that is meant for front line workers and the elderly.
It is also due to Israel's willingness to reportedly pay a huge premium per vaccine in order to ensure that it would have an adequate supply, as well as a huge publicity campaign to ensure that people who might otherwise be skeptical - such as the Arab and haredi communities - get vaccinated.
Yet as well as Israel is doing, there is an even more remarkable chart from the same source that shows that Israel's efforts are getting even better every day in the percentage of the population being inoculated:
These charts are not going to remain looking like this, because some countries will hold off on giving first vaccinations and prioritize giving second vaccinations to the people who already had it. However, Israel seems to have realized that it can reach herd immunity in relatively little time compared to other countries and reaching that goal - which will allow things to return to near-normal - is worth investing huge amounts of time and money in, and ultimately will be a bargain where the economy can rebound.
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Here are excerpts of a ridiculous article in the Hamas-oriented Middle East Monitor by Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh:
This year has seen the world hit with the Covid-19 pandemic but some Arab leaders have afflicted us with the normalisation plague as they race to be best friends with the Zionist state. This plague is deadlier in many ways than the pandemic; the coronavirus affects individuals, while normalisation affects whole nations and threatens the present and future of the Arab people.
The Arab rulers have persisted in their hatred of their own people, and have joined hands with their enemies to conspire against Palestine, the cause that is central to the Muslim Ummah, not just the Arabs.
These normalisers have forgotten Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third Holy Mosque and the fulcrum of the Prophet's miraculous night journey, peace be upon him. In doing so they have made it the sole responsibility of the Palestinians oppressed in their own country, that was usurped by the Zionists, where they face all types of torture, humiliation and deprivation. They stand alone in defence of the Muslim sanctities.
The Palestinians didn't ask anyone to join the ranks of the resistance; they simply wanted moral support. Nevertheless, the Almighty will ask us all what we did to help them in the struggle to defend Al-Aqsa. Those who have made Israel their Qiblah and joined with the usurpers of the Noble Sanctuary have some serious questions to answer. They have given a veneer of legitimacy to the Israeli occupation and helped to strengthen Zionist control over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. The least they can do is spare the Palestinians from the normalisation evil.
The claims that normalisation will not harm the Palestinian cause overlook the fact that Israel is nothing but a Western colonial project to divide and rule the region through client states. It is beyond comprehension to normalise relations with it, due to the nature of the Zionist project and its expansionist goals, which may include the normalising countries.
Let the normalised regimes rejoice in their relations with the Zionists, while preparing for the day when their people will rise up and depose them. The day will come when the Arab people will be liberated from the tyrannical regimes occupying their lands, and from the externally-imposed occupation state. Tomorrow is just a day away.
At least this article doesn't pretend to care about Palestinians. It shows that the entire supposed Arab support for Palestinians is really just to use them to help destroy Israel.
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The supposedly racist Israeli authorities will be giving Palestinian prisoners the coronavirus vaccine before most Israeli citizens get inoculated.
The head of the Palestinian Prisoners and Executives Affairs Authority, Major General Qadri Abu Bakr, announced Saturday that the Israel Prison Service has informed the prisoners that they will be vaccinated against COVID-19 during the next few days.
The vaccinations, which will use the Pfizer vaccine, will be voluntary.
This is of course not good enough for the Palestinians. The Palestinian prisoners Authority is demanding that the vaccinations be held under the supervision of international doctors.
This all of course doesn't jibe with the many news stories that came out last week that claimed that Israel was withholding vaccines from Palestinians. If Israel was racist, the prisoners would be the last ones to get the vaccine, if at all.
But when it comes to Israel, truth is apparently optional.
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Abukhater went to the University of Dundee, Scotland, and since then has used his English skills to write for Countercurrents, Electronic Intifada and most recently The Guardian. He lives in Jerusalem.
In his Al Jazeera piece, he complains that Emiratis visiting Israel are a "slap in the face" for Palestinians.
He writes:
In the second half of the year, a series of Arab states added to our collective misery by announcing their decision to normalise their relations with Israel. By effectively abandoning their supposed commitment to supporting Palestinian self-determination for money, weapons and a few short-term political gains, they sent us a clear message that our suffering and struggle for the most basic human rights no longer matter to them.
If there is one skill that is completely lacking in Palestinian DNA, it is the ability to view the world from any other perspective besides their own bitter viewpoint. They have been so blinded for so long that they simply cannot comprehend that there has been a huge change happening under their feet for two decades in how the Arab world views them.
Arab leaders would speak about their support for Palestinians out loud every day, drafting lots of anti-Israel resolutions in Arab and international forums, but beneath the surface everyone but the Palestinians themselves could see the fissures in the relationship. Arab nations would pledge hundreds of millions of dollars for "Palestine" or "Jerusalem" and pay only a tiny portion, if anything. They expressed deep frustration at how Palestinians couldn't unify under one leadership. They saw how the Fatah and Hamas would fight, bicker and arrest members of the other groups. They saw Palestinian leaders say "no" to repeated peace offers by Israel. And, of course, the Arab nations saw how Palestinians continued to cozy up to Iran as Iran threatened the Arabs of the Gulf.
Palestinians kept themselves blind to this. Their newspapers would rarely report on these stories. Their anger at the UAE "betrayal" is more because of their own choice to ignore 20 years of warning signs than anything the UAE is actually doing.
As far as the UAE not caring about Palestinians, this is clearly not true - they have sent COVID aid to the Palestinians, which was rejected by the PA even before the Abraham Accords but which Hamas has accepted. The UAE has been arranging to bring the Russian COVID vaccine into the PA territories.
More manifestations of Palestinian cluelessness manifest in Abukhater's op-ed:
The arrival of hundreds of Emiratis in Israel to enjoy the historic sites of Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque was a slap in the face for us. After all, millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, just two dozen kilometres away from Al-Aqsa, can only dream about stepping foot in the mosque that is the third holiest site in Islam.
They can only dream about it? In recent years, Israel has issued hundreds of thousands of travel permits for Palestinians to visit Jerusalem - and even Tel Aviv! - during Ramadan, and Palestinians over 40 didn't even need a permit. In fact, some years the PA itself prohibited Palestinians from traveling!
There's another irony here. Abukhater lives in Jerusalem, meaning that he can visit Al Aqsa every day. He can also visit the rest of Israel every day. And he can also visit Ramallah every day. He, an Arab, has more freedom of movement than any Jew in Israel, including Jews who want to visit holy sites in Nablus or Jericho or elsewhere.
Of course, we Palestinian Jerusalemites were already used to seeing Muslim pilgrims from Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia or other non-Arab Muslim-majority countries at Al-Aqsa. Over the years, Palestinians rarely had any problem with these visitors, as they overwhelmingly believe this holiest of mosques should not be monopolised by any subset of Muslims, even under the devastating conditions of an occupation.
But the Palestinian Jerusalemites were not as accepting of Emirati tourists as others.
So who is intolerant?
Abukhater doesn't even realize what he is saying here. Citizens of countries that make peace with Israel are given the right to visit Israel proportionate to the closeness of relations. This should not be surprising - it is natural.
A Jewish woman was murdered, apparently by Palestinians, only two days ago. There was a Palestinian terror shooting also this week in Jerusalem. Is it really so strange that Israel limits Palestinian access to areas with Jews?
If Palestinians would act like Emiratis, they would have a state. If they accepted Jews as natives of the Middle East as Emiratis do, accept Israel as a Jewish state, and end their rhetorical and monetary support for terrorists, they would be able to visit Israel freely as well.
Israel's peace with the UAE and other Arab states proves this. Israel isn't anti-Arab or Islamophobic - it wants peace, security and acceptance, and is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Arabs who provide that.
Palestinian hate and antisemitism and intransigence are the obstacles to peace. The UAE and Bahrain and Morocco prove it.
(h/t Josh Korn)
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AP has a biased report essentially accusing Israel of anti-Palestinian racism because the Pfizer vaccine cannot be used in the territories, due to a shortage of super-cold refrigeration units that are needed for it to remain effective.
Left unsaid is that millions of Israelis will also have to wait months - there are not enough vaccines to go around now. AP is suggesting that Israel prioritize its own citizens behind Palestinians, which no nation on Earth would or should do.
While buried in the story it mentions that all rich nations are getting the vaccines before all poor nations, only Israel is blamed for this. No one is telling the US to wait to inoculate its citizens until Haitians are all vaccinated.
It isn't a question of discrimination. It is a question of logistics and limited resources. And even with that, PBS doesn't mention how Israel is working to provide vaccines for Palestinians by the millions.
But there is one part of the report where an Israeli Leftist NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, makes an incredibly condescending statement about Palestinians, and no one even bats an eye.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, a group that advocates for more equitable health care, says Israel has a legal obligation as an occupying power to purchase and distribute vaccines to the Palestinians. It says Israel must also ensure that vaccines that don’t meet its own safety guidelines — like the Russian shot — are not distributed in areas under its control.
The Palestinian Authority has approved the Russian vaccine. Israel hasn't.
PHRI is saying that Palestinians cannot make their own decisions as to which vaccines are safe for them to use. Even worse, they are saying that the potential benefits of the Russian vaccine must not be made available to Palestinians but that they must adhere to Israeli medical standards, whether they want to or not - and at the risk of many more people becoming ill and dying.
The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine, although viewed with some skepticism by some, has been bought by countries like India, Brazil and Mexico. Russia claims a 92% effectiveness rate, on par with those of Pfizer and Moderna. Israel's Hadassah Hospital is helping the Palestinians import the vaccine, even though it will not be used by Israel at this time.
Yet Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is against this potentially life saving measure, because they condescendingly consider Palestinians too stupid to make life and death decisions for themselves.
That is Leftist racism.
And you can be sure that if Israel blocked the Russian vaccine from being sent to Palestinians, PHR-I would be the first to accuse Israel of human rights abuses.
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As usual, for Palestinians, everything must be politicized to be against Israel.
The latest example is Palestinian prime minister Mohame Shtayyeh's video speech at the lighting of the Bethlehem Christmas tree. During his address, he compared Israel to COVID-19 more than once, even referring to Israel as a "pandemic."
We will not surrender, neither to the virus nor to the occupation measures, and we will accomplish what we have started .
...
We presented a message in the political steadfastness in the face of the colonial occupation pandemic, and in the face of the seizure of our money, and we presented a message in the national steadfastness in the face of the disease pandemic.
This is the hate that Palestinians grow up with and receive every day of their lives.
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Israel's Hadassah Medical Centre is currently in talks with the UAE over the sale of 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for Palestine, Quds Press reported yesterday.
According to the news site, the Israeli public radio Kan, reported that the negotiations between the two sides related to the Russian vaccine.
Kan noted that the Israeli Ministry of Health has not yet approved the Russian vaccine and it is not expected to approve it in the near future.
If I am reading this correctly, even though Israel does not trust the Russian vaccine for its own citizens, it allows Hadassah and the UAE to work to get the vaccine to Palestinians, which presumably do approve it.
This story blows up all the narratives: that Israel doesn't want to provide Palestinians with medicines, that the UAE hates Palestinians, that "normalization" is a catastrophe for Palestinians.
So far Russia has agreements to sell its vaccine to a number of countries including India, Venezuela, Mexico, China, Egypt and Brazil.
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In another crushing blow to those who were hoping that Israel would use the coronavirus to finally perform the genocide of Palestinians that they have been predicting for 72 years, Israel is preparing to provide millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to those who want to see Israel disappear.
Israel Hayom (Hebrew) quotes a senior Palestinian Authority official saying that "between 3 and 4 million vaccines will be transferred from Israel to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and some of the vaccines will also go to Gaza. Israel is committed to helping us curb the virus."
Senior sources in the Palestinian Ministry of Health told Israel Today that the Palestinian Authority is included in any negotiations to purchase vaccines or order doses from Pfizer, Moderna or any other pharmaceutical company that Israel has or will have a supply agreement.
Unlike Israel, though, the Palestinians will also get millions of doses from the UN and other international organizations.
It is unclear whether Israel will be delaying vaccinating some of its own citizens to help the Palestinians.
Israel is filled with the world's worst genocidists, to be sure. But one can expect that Palestinians will start a rumor that the vaccines provided by Israel will be actually poison.
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But the Palestinian Authority has been reducing the number of permits of sick Palestinians to go to Israeli hospitals in recent years.
In 2017, it drastically reduced the number of Gazans given permission to travel to Israel for medical treatment.
Earlier this year, in order to fulfil a promise by Mahmoud Abbas to end all coordination with Israel, the Palestinian Authority stopped all transfers of patients to Israel - resulting in some deaths. Israeli NGOs scrambled to try to allow the most sick patients to come to Israel for treatment, while Palestinian NGOs angrily said that they would not try to help save Palestinian lives - the principle of non-cooperation was far more important than mere human life.
Well, that only applies to expendable Palestinians. But not the VIPs.
Apparently, the PLO rules of Palestinian honor only extend to allowing normal Palestinians to die for the cause, but not highly placed PLO officials.
A government that actively works against the interests of its own people does not deserve to exist to begin with. But when it distinguishes between the masses of its people it doesn't care about and its own top officials, it shows that it doesn't even adhere to its own stated principles to justify treating its citizens like dirt.
Palestinians deserve better leaders than this.
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Dr. Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told CNN that President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas wishes US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania a speedy and full recovery.
However, if you look at the "Presidency" section on the Wafa Arabic website where all Abbas' official statements and communications are, there is not a word about wishing Trump a recovery on that page.
Abbas' Facebook page likewise does not say a word about this.
It's almost like Saeb Erakat is making things up to stall the freefall of Abbas' reputation in the US.
UPDATE: Just as I was publishing this, I saw this amazingly hypocritical tweet from Erakat:
Met with China’s 🇨🇳 Ambassador to Palestine 🇵🇸 QWA WEI . Appreciated China’s firm stand with int. Law , end the Israeli occupation. No to annexation and settlements . Two States 1967 borders. Help Palestine to fight COVID 19. pic.twitter.com/pYBED4Wf6Z
— Dr. Saeb Erakat الدكتور صائب عريقات (@ErakatSaeb) October 5, 2020
Yes, the Palestinian leaders are praising the Chinese government - which, as one commenter noted, is "the only regime in the entire world that has a systematic and openly admitted occupation and detention programme targeted at Muslims, Tibetans and Mongolians" - as a paradigm for upholding international law!
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This morning (Wednesday) Israel’s Health Ministry announced that in the past 24 hours there were 6,861 new cases of Covid-19 detected in 59,169 tests, an 11.5% positive ratio. This ratio has been steadily increasing, which is an indication of the explosive spread of the disease.
This is the worst ever for Israel, which has had the greatest average number of new cases per day per million population in the world for several weeks now. The Health Ministry’s “point man” on Corona, Dr. Ronni Gamzu, predicted that within a week the number of serious cases that require hospitalization will exceed the capacity of the system. When that happens, the system will stretch a bit. One hospital converted a parking garage into a Corona facility in a remarkably short time; the IDF is setting up field hospitals. But if the numbers continue to increase, soon there will be no more flexibility. Doctors will have to decide whom to treat and whom not. People will die who could have been saved.
Last week Israel began a second partial lockdown. Its effect will not be felt for another week, but it’s doubtful – based on the various loopholes left in it for political reasons and a general lack of observance of the rules – that it will be enough to reduce the spread of the disease significantly.
There is a lack of good information available about how to reduce the number of infections, but it seems clear that crowds are bad, crowds indoors are worse, and masks – if properly worn – help, especially if both the infectious person and the one at risk wear them. It also seems that the amount of virus that a person picks up can affect whether they will be infected and how seriously; so the amount of time spent in a dangerous situation is important.
The strategy (as it appears today) of the Health Ministry is to apply restrictions to reduce the daily number of new cases to the point that it will be possible to track the contacts of each infected person, test them, and quarantine anyone who is positive or who has had direct contact with someone who tests positive. That is called “breaking the chain of infection.” But that can only happen if the number of new cases is manageable. Once that is achieved, it should be possible to gradually release the restrictions and return the society to normal without causing a new spike in infections. Estimates of how low it must go vary widely, between 100 and 1000 new cases per day.
The objective in applying restrictions is to restrict those behaviors that facilitate the spread of the virus as much as possible, while doing the smallest possible damage to the economy. And here we run into the problems of politics and attitudes.
Yesterday and today the “Corona Cabinet” – a committee of government ministers from relevant ministries – has been discussing the tightening of restrictions that will be needed. One of the biggest conflicts concerns two activities which involve large crowds, including numerous people without masks who do not observe “social distancing,” and which have zero impact on the economy. It would seem obvious that these would be the first to be restricted.
But the activities we are talking about are the weekly raucous, theatrical, and sometimes obscene demonstrations outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, and his home in Caesarea; and the coming synagogue services on Yom Kippur.
The Left believes that there is nothing more sacred than the right to demonstrate. An attempt to shut down or even limit the numbers of demonstrators is met with fury on the street and from opposition politicians. It’s claimed that would “destroy democracy.” The Attorney General, who in Israel is more a functionary of the legal establishment and the Supreme Court than of the government, says that the government would have to get the Knesset to pass a special law if it wants to stop demonstrations.
Observant Jewish Israelis, of course, insist that it is unacceptable to forbid Jewish prayer in a Jewish state. And both sides are right, but they are both wrong in their insistence that they get their way in the face of the fact that both demonstrations and packed synagogues are known to effectively spread the virus.
The tracking mechanism of the Internal Security Service (Shabak) that is being used to track exposure and locate people violating quarantine is ineffective in these cases, since both demonstrators – just for that reason – and synagogue-goers leave their cellphones at home.
The government could not stand against the pressure, so it punted and appointed a “professional” committee to come up with limitations on demonstrations and public prayer that would allow both to continue. Unfortunately, these rules will be broken, because a large segment of each group does not respect any rules that come from the government. The police are outnumbered, and even though they can impose fines, have a hard time enforcing rules – and the more complicated they are, the harder it is.
Much of the Haredi educational system is operating, including schools for children and yeshivot and kollelim for adults, despite the closings decreed in “red zones.” Limits on the number of congregants in synagogues were widely broken during Rosh Hashana. Dozens of anti-Bibi and anti-lockdown protestors set up tables in front of the PM’s residence and had a festive meal. Over the weekend, a large group held what was essentially a beach party, allegedly under the rules permitting “demonstrations.”
In the Arab towns on both sides of the Green Line, the problem has been massive weddings, which sometimes go on for several days with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of participants. Mayors of Israeli Arab towns imposed nighttime curfews, which may have helped, although weddings are then sometimes held during the day.
In anything less than a Chinese-style totalitarian system, laws are upheld primarily by the willingness of citizens to obey them, with enforcement only needed for egregious violators. That mechanism is breaking down in Israel. A recent survey showed that 68% did not trust PM Netanyahu to manage the response to the virus, and 41% did not trust Dr. Gamzu. And Israelis tend to ignore people and rules that they don’t respect.
This is literally a question of life and death, both for Israelis and for their economy. A two-or-three week lockdown is bad enough, but two or three months would be intolerable. Either we get a handle on this epidemic, or we will be facing the choice between economic disaster or hundreds of deaths every day (today there were 31). Or if we are indecisive enough, maybe we’ll get both.
What needs to happen is that the government has to make simple rules, stick to them, and enforce them with severe penalties. No demonstrations, period. Close the synagogues, period. No weddings, period. And the people, Arabs and Jews both, need to follow the rules. In a few weeks, we can break the back of the epidemic, and then return to something closer to normalcy.
Continuing to take two steps forward and three steps back as we’ve been doing will only earn us a bunch of funerals – and no economy, either.
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