The New York Times
Israel gives vaccine to distant allies while Palestinians wait
JERUSALEM – The Israeli government has pledged to send thousands of backup coronavirus vaccines to foreign allies, rekindling a debate about Israel’s responsibilities to people closer to home: Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. On Tuesday, the governments of the Czech Republic and Honduras confirmed that Israel had promised them every 5,000 vaccine doses manufactured by Moderna. Israeli news media reported that Hungary and Guatemala would receive a similar number, but the Hungarian and Israeli governments declined to comment, while the Guatemalan government did not respond to a request for comment. The donations are the latest example of a new manifestation of soft power: vaccine diplomacy, in which vaccine-rich countries seek to reward or influence those who have little access to them. Sign up for The Morning’s newsletter from the New York Times Jockeying for Influence Asia, China and India have donated thousands of vaccine doses to their neighbors. The United Arab Emirates has done the same for allies like Egypt. And last week, Israel even pledged to buy tens of thousands of doses on behalf of the Syrian government, a longtime enemy, in exchange for the return of an Israeli citizen held in Syria. The vaccines allocated Tuesday were given unconditionally, but they tacitly reward recent gestures from the recipient countries implicitly accepting Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, who regard Israelis as well as Palestinians as their capital. Guatemala has moved its embassy to Jerusalem, while Honduras has pledged to do so. Hungary has set up a trade mission in Jerusalem, while the Czech Republic has promised to open a diplomatic office there. Israel has given at least one injection of the two-dose Pfizer-manufactured vaccine to just over half of its own population of 9 million – including people living in Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories – making it the world leader in the field of the introduction of vaccines. That has enabled the Israeli government to strengthen its international relations with its oversupply of Moderna vaccines. But the move has angered the Palestinians because it suggests that Israel’s allies are a higher priority than the Palestinians living under Israeli control in the occupied territories, almost all of whom have not yet received a vaccine. Israel has pledged at least twice as many doses to distant countries as it has so far promised to the nearly 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli government says the Palestinian Authority was given responsibility for organizing its own health care system in the 1990s, following the signing of the Oslo Accords that gave Palestinian leaders limited autonomy in parts of the occupied territories. Israel has given 2,000 doses of vaccine to the Palestinian Authority and promised 3,000 extra – symbolic figures, given the size of the Palestinian population. And while Israel has hinted that more is to come, it has yet to formalize details. “A few weeks ago, there were question marks as to whether we had enough vaccines for our own people,” said Mark Regev, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Now that it looks like we are doing that, we can be more open to our neighbors.” Regev added, “The virus does not stop at the border, and we have a great interest in the Palestinians being able to stay on top of that.” But on Tuesday evening, an Israeli security official said the military department coordinating coordination between Israel and the Palestinian leadership had not yet received government permission to supply more vaccines to the Palestinian Authority. In any case, human rights watchdogs say Israel should organize a systematic vaccine program in the occupied territories, rather than sporadically supplying a few thousand spare parts. They cite the Fourth Geneva Convention, which requires an occupying force to work with local authorities to maintain public health in an occupied territory, including during epidemics. The watchdog groups also note that the Israeli government not only controls all imports to the West Bank and Gaza, but also, in recent contributions to the International Criminal Court, disputed Palestinian claims to sovereign state. “It’s a system of oppression,” said Salem Barahmeh, executive director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, a Ramallah-based advocacy group. “It says a lot about a regime,” Barahmeh added, “that it is willing to send vaccines halfway around the world, possibly in return, and not offer the vaccine to the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company