Palestinians left waiting as Israel is set to deploy vaccine snarls the AP headline.
The Washington Post is not much better with theirs: Israel is starting to vaccinate, but Palestinians may have to wait months
The implication is clear: Israel should be ensuring the palestinians get vaccinated, as we do our own citizens. Actually, it is more than implied; both reports say it explicitly. For instance, from the AP one:
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.
“Israel still maintains control over many aspects of the Palestinians’ lives, whether checkpoints, importing goods and medication, and controlling the movement of people,” said Ghada Majadle, the director of the group’s activities in the Palestinian territories.
“The Palestinian health system, whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, is in dire condition, mainly (because of) restrictions imposed by Israel.”
Israel has no such legal obligation. The palestinians have their Palestinian Authority and Hamas government in Gaza. They are responsible for their own people. Israel has an obligation to enable the vaccines to get to the palestinian-controlled territories.
In fact, before the vaccine was created, Israel was enabling testing kits to get to these areas. Remember how that went?
The United Arab Emirates announced on Wednesday that it had sent a shipment of coronavirus aid to the Gaza Strip in collaboration with an organization run by its preferred Palestinian proxy, Mohammad Dahlan, the former leader of the Fatah movement, which is a rival of the Hamas rulers of Gaza.
“The United Arab Emirates today sent a third aid plane carrying 14.4 metric tons of medical supplies and testing kits to the Gaza Strip,” the Emirati ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Relations between Palestinian factions and the UAE have grown tense in recent months due to Abu Dhabi’s decision in mid-August to fully normalize ties with Israel, which both the Hamas terror group and the Palestinian Authority deemed “a stab in the back” to the Palestinian cause.
Two previous Emirati aid shipments were rejected by the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, in May and June prior to the announcement of normalization, as Ramallah saw the planes landing at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport as a sign of Abu Dhabi’s move toward legitimizing Israel.
Similarly, Hamas has been refusing aid.
Besides refusing valuable help, the palestinian leadership has also invested billions of dollars in terrorism. So when you read things like this
Israel’s vaccination campaign will include Jewish settlers living deep inside the West Bank, who are Israeli citizens, but not the territory’s 2.5 million Palestinians.
They will have to wait for the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank in accordance with interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinian seek for their future state, in the 1967 Mideast war.
remember that the PA has squandered billions of dollars on terror funding, including the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars a year on their pay-for-slay fund.
And when you read this
The Palestinians need not just financial assistance, but logistical help as well. The Pfizer serum, for example, must be shipped and stored at minus-94 degrees, a cold chain effectively unavailable in Gaza, where electricity is available only eight hours a day
“We just do not have the technical capabilities for that,” said Ali Abd Rabbo, director of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. “We have held sessions with the Israeli side in this regard, but until this moment there is no agreement.”
know that Hamas spends at least $100 million on terror infrastructure.
So no, AP. This is not true
“The Palestinian health system, whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, is in dire condition, mainly (because of) restrictions imposed by Israel.”
And Washington Post, how on earth do you paint this as something bad?
Whatever arrangements they make with vaccine providers, the Palestinians face the added barrier of Israeli control. Any vaccine will be subject to review by Israeli regulators, who have previously blocked the importation of unapproved drugs.
Umm, to stop dangerous drugs from getting through and killing people! In fact, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel even agree to this
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.
If the MSM reported objectively and accurately, maybe the palestinian leadership would be encouraged to change their behavior for the welfare of their people. As it is, they are emboldened to continue to endanger their lives, not to mention the lives of Israelis.
Update: EoZ notices something else
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.
