Israel has led the world by rapidly vaccinating much of its population, so of course the global left must find fault: hence the urge to condemn Jerusalem for not taking responsibility for vaccinations in Gaza and the West Bank.
In a series of tweets, Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth accused Israel of racism for this alleged failure; a week later, Palestinian officials decided to join the blame game and announced that Israel is responsible for vaccinating Palestinians, despite previous statements to the contrary.
In reality, like Hillel Neuer of UN Watch notesthe 1995 Oslo II Accord assigns responsibility for the health care and vaccinations of the population to the Palestinian Authority.
And while the two countries are expected to work together in tackling epidemics, Palestinian Health Ministry officials admitted in December that they had not asked for help obtaining vaccines from Israel.
Top Palestinian officials routinely go to Israel for major medical care, but PA propaganda discourages it for everyone else, with obscure evidence that Jewish doctors will only provide Arabs with poor care – if they don’t secretly experiment with Palestinian patients.
The PA has struck its own deals to buy AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V vaccines, although the first did not start arriving until this month. Nor has it made an official (shameful) request to Jerusalem to help. (World Health Organization officials only mention ‘informal discussions’ when they have made such a request.)
Note that Israel is vaccinating its Arab citizens. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even visited Arab areas to encourage obtaining the vax. Many Israeli Arabs in East Jerusalem have done so.
And Jerusalem is also pinning captured Palestinian terrorists on a priority basis, for many of its own citizens – even as PA propaganda suggests the program is really about conducting medical experiments. But the enemy of NGOs and the United Nations is, as always, Israel, regardless of the facts.