If the US has leftover vaccines once every American has had the opportunity to get a jab, the Biden administration will share its inventory with the rest of the world, the president said on Wednesday.“The surplus will – if we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday, shortly after announcing his government had secured a deal for the purchase of another 100m doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.“So we're going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first, but then we're then going to try to help the rest of the world.”
I've pointed out months ago that Australia and New Zealand are doing the same thing - prioritizing their own populations before giving it to their neighbors.
Yet only Israel is expected to provide vaccines for others before its own population is fully inoculated.
Similarly, when Israel said a few weeks ago that it will give some symbolic amounts of vaccine to friendly nations as a form of diplomacy, it was pilloried in the media. How dare something that saves lives be used in this way - it is practically blackmail!
Yet China, India and Russia give out lots of vaccines specifically for the purpose of strengthening ties with other countries - and no one seems to have a problem with that.
Israel is now providing some 120,000 vaccines to Palestinians for free - with IDF soldiers helping out - and the coverage is sparse.
The double standards are overwhelming, and absolutely normal when it comes to Israel.