Pizza-sized boxes and paying a premium: Israel's COVID-19 vaccine rollout
A universal public healthcare system, which requires every resident to be covered by a healthcare maintenance organisation (HMO) and connected to a nationwide digital network, then kicks in.CAMERA Op-Ed More False Attacks Against Israel on COVID-19 Vaccines
Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer for HMO Clalit, said Israel has integrated infrastructures of digital data with “full coverage of the entire population, cradle to grave.”
“So it is easy both to identify the right target population and to create data-driven ‘outreach’ because this is something that is done as our everyday care routine,” said Balicer, who also chairs the government’s expert advisory coronavirus panel.
Administering about 150,000 shots a day at clinics and special facilities, Israel has prioritised over-60s, health workers and people with medical conditions. The city of Haifa offers drive-through vaccinations.
“I have been waiting to be liberated from this pressure, from the anxiety that’s there in the background all the time, to be free, to finally stop worrying,” said 76-year-old psychologist Tamar Shachnai. A week into the campaign she had already received a text message with instructions from her HMO, scheduled an appointment and got her first shot.
Shachnai was vaccinated at a centre in a Jerusalem sports arena where about 500 people had passed through by lunchtime. Towards the end of the day, about 20 younger people gathered outside the arena, hoping to receive the vaccine.
Israel has also added vaccination centres in Arab towns, said Aiman Saif, the health ministry’s coronavirus coordinator for the Arab community, following concerns about the low rate of vaccination among Israeli Arabs.
He said some Israeli Arabs initially appeared reluctant to be vaccinated and may have been put off by misinformation on social media, prompting Israel to accelerate a public campaign to combat “fake news” about alleged side effects.
Palestinian health official Yasser Bozyeh estimated that Palestinians would begin receiving doses in February through the World Health Organization’s vaccine scheme for poor and middle-income countries.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank and has its own health system, has also contacted private drugmakers.
Edelstein said it was in Israel’s interest to make sure the Palestinian population was also vaccinated and that he was open to discussing passing on any extra vaccines once Israel meets its own demand. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.
“Palestinians,” the former Associated Press journalist and author Matti Friedman wrote in 2014, “are not taken seriously as agents of their own fate.” A December 19, 2020 Washington Post report, entitled, “Israel is starting to vaccinate, but Palestinians may have to wait months,” proves Friedman correct. The newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix and new correspondent Shira Rubi unfairly — and inaccurately — blame Israel for the failures of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Hendrix and Rubin write that “Israel, like many high-income countries, is moving quickly to roll out newly approved coronavirus vaccines,” but “next door in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the prospects for vaccinating almost 5 million Palestinians are far less certain, as financial, political and logistical hurdles could delay inoculations against the raging pandemic for months.” This “split,” the Post employees claim, “highlights the tense disparities between Israel and the Palestinian populations it effectively controls.”
“Few places,” they add, “offer a starker side-by-side example of the gap than Israel and the Palestinian territories.”
Yet, Israel doesn’t “effectively control” populations in either the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank or the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Nor is Israel responsible for their healthcare. In fact — although neither Post reporter mentions it in their 981-word article — the PA itself is responsible, per a signed agreement with Israel, for the healthcare of those living under the Authority’s rule.
Article 17 of the Oslo II agreement explicitly states that “powers and responsibilities in the sphere of Health in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be transferred to the Palestinian side.” Further, the Oslo Accords specify that “the Palestinian side shall continue to apply the present standard of vaccination of Palestinians and shall improve them according to internationally accepted standards in the field, taking into account WHO recommendations.” For nearly three decades, this has been the case — including with other vaccines.
It doesn’t get clearer than that.
The same group that always cites the Palestinian Ministry of Health now wants you not to know that it exists, is responsible for vaccinating its population & has rejected Israeli help. See this thread for key facts: https://t.co/GmnBe20xrs
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 6, 2021
Amnesty just wants you to hate Jews. https://t.co/7YulTFjAPn
The Guardian Criticized for Vaccine Article about Israel
The British newspaper The Guardian was criticized for a headline stating that Palestinians have been “excluded” from Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout. The January 3 headline states in full: “Palestinians excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers,” which was tweeted out from The Guardian’s Twitter account.
American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris tweeted that the headline was “malicious.” “Palestinians aren’t ‘excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout,’” Harris wrote. “They rejected Covid cooperation w/ Israel. They’re in charge of own health care under Oslo Accords. They spurned UAE’s [United Arab Emirates] Covid aid -They’re awaiting millions of doses of Russian vaccine. An apology?”The Simon Wiesenthal Center similarly tweeted that the allegation that Israel is excluding Palestinians from obtaining COVID-19 vaccines is a “new anti-Israel libel.” “@guardian newspaper buries one inconvenient fact: Palestinian Authority is in charge of Palestinians in their territory,” they wrote. “It made NO request for #Israel for vaccine. Any doubt Israel would help if asked?”Malicious!
— David Harris (@DavidHarrisAJC) January 4, 2021
Palestinians aren’t “excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout.”
-They rejected Covid cooperation w/ Israel
-They’re in charge of own health care under Oslo Accords
-They spurned UAE’s Covid aid
-They’re awaiting millions of doses of Russian vaccine
An apology? https://t.co/YouiU1gHA0
In a subsequent tweet, the Wiesenthal Center added: “Corrupt PA’s [Palestinian Authority] official policy no cooperation with Jewish state ever – bars sick [Palestinians] from Israeli treatment except top sick PA and Hamas officials.”International human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky tweeted that those criticizing Israel for not giving COVID-19 vaccines to the Palestinians should know that the “PA specifically asked [Israel] not to, as they want to themselves” and noted that “perhaps if PA wasn’t paying hundreds of millions $$$ in terrorist salaries, they could do this faster.”Corrupt PA’s official policy no cooperation with Jewish state ever – bars sick Pals from Israeli treatment except top sick PA and Hamas officials.
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) January 4, 2021The Guardian article does state later on that the PA “has not officially asked for help from Israel. Coordination between the two sides halted last year after the Palestinian president cut off security ties for several months.” It continues to say that “Israeli officials have suggested they might provide surplus vaccines to Palestinians and claim they are not responsible for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, pointing to 1990s-era interim agreements that required the authority to observe international vaccination standards.”To all those parroting the 'why is #Israel not giving #Palestinians #COVID19 vaccines':
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 4, 2021
1. Israel not obliged.
2. PA specifically asked not to, as they want to themselves.
3. Perhaps if PA wasn't paying hundreds of millions $$$ in terrorist salaries, they could do this faster.
The article also quotes an Israeli human rights NGO named Gisha stating that Israel still has an “ultimate responsibility toward Palestinians under occupation.”
A spokesperson from The Guardian said in a statement to the Journal, “The story in question reported the concerns of human rights groups, including an Israeli human rights group.”
.@piersmorgan @GMB
— NW Friends of Israel (@NorthWestFOI) January 6, 2021
Piers - Get your facts straight
Israel is NOT responsible for vaccinating the Gaza Strip
Hamas rules Gaza & the Pal Authority has ordered 4 MILLION Russian Sputnik doses for the West Bank & Gaza
Stop engaging in a modern day blood libel against Israel pic.twitter.com/TvnZv20url
Anti-Israel vaccine narrative catches on with left-wing MPs
Legislators in parliaments of several countries have echoed the false reports that Israel is barring Palestinians from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in recent days.
Charlie Angus and Leah Gazan of Canada's left-wing New Democratic Party both repeated the misleading reports, with the former calling Israel an apartheid state and the latter saying Israel was "excluding people from being vaccinated based on discriminatory decisions and a clear violation of human rights.”
The false accusations were spread mostly by activists in the past month, but an article published on Sunday in the UK's Guardian headlined "Palestinians excluded from COVID vaccines and jabs go to settlers" exposed them to a much larger audience. Other news outlets had also tied Israel’s world-leading coronavirus vaccine rollout to the Palestinians’ slower progress on that front.
Under article 17 of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for healthcare, including vaccines, for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has been vaccinating Palestinians in east Jerusalem. In addition, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told The New York Times he had “no doubt” Israel would help the Palestinians, in an article published two days before the one in the Guardian. When the Guardian article was published, the Palestinians had not asked Israel to help.
The Palestinian Authority has ordered doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines and the AstraZeneca vaccine, and is expected to begin vaccinations in February. The PA is also participating in the World Health Organization’s vaccine aid program.
B'nai Brith Canada accused Angus of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories by sharing the Guardian article, a charge he rejected in a Facebook post on Monday.