Seth Frantzman: How anti-Israel voices made a hypocritical, inaccurate story on vaccines
The slander against Israel claiming that Israel is not vaccinating Palestinians is built on a variety of misleading information. A better line of questioning might ask why the international community has not aided the Palestinians more. However, the international community has in general done a poor job helping the global south with vaccines. Many wealthy countries can’t even vaccinate their own people, so the process in general is chaotic. Israel is an exception, but even its rapid vaccination is a first and in a way experimental because Israel is billing itself as a kind of test case.The Palestinian Vaccine Blood Libel
The Palestinian Authority has decided which groups will get priority when a vaccine arrives. These include the elderly, journalists and security forces. So it isn’t like they haven’t been planning. They have. Reports should look at their plans. The Palestinian Authority spent late December trying to arrest a DJ accused of hosting a party at a shrine called Nebi Musa, rather than getting vaccines.
There is an added layer of hypocrisy to the story alleging Israel doesn’t vaccinate Palestinians. Neighboring states have not been vaccinating almost anyone. When it comes to providing vaccinations Israel has done an exemplary job, providing them to Arabs and Jews. For many who refer to Arabs in Jerusalem as Palestinians, Israel has been vaccinating Palestinians. The invention of the story was conjured up to try to tarnish the positive image, rather than report facts. Israel didn’t “exclude” anyone or “fail” to do something in Gaza or the West Bank. The same people who recognize Palestine as a state are the ones arguing Israel should vaccinate that state and the same ones who refer to Palestinians in Jerusalem as Palestinians, claim Israel didn’t vaccinate them, when Israel has provided for them.
The hypocritical attitude toward Israel has no parallel when looking at other occupied or disputed areas. The same voices have not asked who will vaccinate Idlib province in Syria, or Palestinians in Lebanon, or who will vaccinate northern Cyprus or Abkhazia and Crimea and the Donbas.
Health provision is a right for citizens, but it’s not clear what states are required to do for non-citizens. In general health authorities are often not discriminatory, they try to provide life-saving health care when needed. That’s how health care should work because when it comes to a virus the virus doesn’t distinguish citizen from non-citizen. In situations where you have self-governed areas, like the Gaza Strip, the sudden claim that Israel should take responsibility for vaccinations, but not other health services is designed solely to slander Israel for being at fault for something it is not at fault for. If Israel were to provide vaccinations that would be phenomenal, slandering it for not doing that and trying to refashion it as “occupying” an area it left 15 years ago is part of an agenda.
Hatred of Israel always finds a way to target Israel. Instead of celebrating Israel’s accomplishment and learning from it, the goal of the critics is to find some misleading fault in Israel’s unprecedented program. Instead of asserting that countries might learn from this and also help Palestinians, the goal is simply to excoriate Israel.
The facts are the Palestinians demanded autonomy, including over their people’s health care, under the Oslo Accords. As the Accords read, “Powers and responsibilities in the sphere of health in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be transferred to the Palestinian side, including health insurance. The Palestinian side shall provide vaccinations.” Israel signed it and the Palestinians are responsible for the health care of their people. It is Palestinian incompetence that led to their inability to provide vaccines to their people.
The Guardian article also claims the Palestinian Authority are “cash strapped.” The Palestinian Authority dedicates over $300 million annually to their “pay for slay” program which pays Palestinians a monthly stiped on a sliding scale based on how many Israelis they’ve killed or injured. This pay for slay burden on the Palestinian budget precludes their ability to pay for their people’s health care.
As if these weren’t enough to show how baseless the allegations against Israel are, Palestinians also denied help from Israel to acquire vaccinations. You can almost hear Abba Eben repeating from the grave, “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” The most damning piece of evidence to the slanderous nature of these accusations is that Palestinian Ministry of Health officials announced they had secured vaccines.
Lazy journalists who try to play the moral high ground by demonizing Israel are a dime a dozen. Some are motivated by the need for approval of other moral crusaders and some are run of the mill anti-Semites. It’s easy pickings. It isn’t journalism.
Modern day blood libels aren’t as rare as one would think. Articles frequently appear demonizing Israel for mistreating Palestinians. After looking into these articles its easy to find the false information twisted to disparage Israel. It’s easy to defend these articles from charges of anti-Semitism, but those who have faced anti-Semitism know that the best spread anti-Semitism is hate disguised to look like legitimate criticism. The Guardian and all those spreading the vaccine lie are just as guilty of anti-Semitism as the haters who used to fabricate blood libels.
The malice and ignorance here are staggering:
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) January 3, 2021
1. The Oslo Accords grant responsibility for healthcare to the autonomous Palestinian Authority;
2. The Palestinians have procured their own vaccines;
3. The Palestinians have not asked Israel for help with vaccines. https://t.co/a4CIdbdwlS
Daniel Gordis: Vaccination Miracle Brings Israel Back to Its Roots
At the vaccination station at a large Jerusalem sports arena, a small army of nurses and medical techs injected one person after another with utter efficiency. We were reminded of the old Israel, the Israel that knows how to show our national resilience when facing a mortal enemy.Kan retracts claim millionth vaccinee was murderer; ToI apologizes for citing it
This is still a country that when a little kid is crying outside without an adult in obvious proximity, people scoop him or her up and wait for someone to show. These past few weeks have evoked once again that Israel that sees itself as a family.
I was momentarily confused as we waited the required 15 minutes after the shot, as staff members walked around handing out copies of little booklets: games for children. "What on earth are these for?" I wondered. "There isn't a kid in sight. We're all over 60." And then it struck me, as people happily and gratefully took copies of the booklet - and then asked for another copy or two. The booklets weren't for us - they were for our grandchildren.
There are still moments here when we recognize that this is not a country like any other. It is a country that was founded to give sanctuary to a particular people that desperately needed it, one that has weathered more in seven decades than most countries do in centuries, and that has produced a sort of familial resilience that can't be replicated anywhere else.
The Kan public broadcaster on Monday retracted its claim and apologized for reporting on Sunday that the man highlighted as the millionth Israeli to receive the coronavirus vaccine, who was given his inoculation last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing alongside him, served time for murder.
The Times of Israel apologizes for citing the erroneous reports in earlier versions of its article on the incident.
Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab Jabarin, 66, who got his shot on Friday, as Netanyahu was visiting a vaccination center in the Arab Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm, served 14 years for robbery and weapons charges, and was released in 1992.
Kan initially reported Sunday that Jabarin had been jailed for murder, and later said he had served time for manslaughter. The claim, carried prominently in Kan’s hourly news bulletins, was widely reported in Israeli media outlets, including ToI. On Monday, Kan retracted (Hebrew link) its reports, saying they were erroneous. It said two of its reporters had separately checked the information with multiple sources, some of whom it has worked with for years, who had verified it, but in fact were mistaken.
Jabarin later Sunday acknowledged the lengthy jail term, while denying the reports of more serious crimes. “It’s a lie that I did time for murder. I was jailed for robbery, and for [charges related to] weapons,” he told Kan.