Israel has led the world in rapidly vaccinating much of its population, so naturally the global left has to find fault: hence the drive to condemn Jerusalem for not taking responsibility for vaccinations in Gaza and the West Bank.
In a series of tweets, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth accused Israel of racism for this supposed failure; a week later, Palestinian officials decided to join the blame game, announcing that Israel is responsible for vaccinating Palestinians despite past statements to the contrary.
In reality, as UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer notes, the 1995 Oslo II Accord designates responsibility for the health care and vaccinations of its people to the Palestinian Authority.
And while the two countries are supposed to cooperate in terms of handling epidemics, Palestinian Health Ministry officials admitted back in December that they didn’t ask for help in obtaining vaccines from Israel.
Top Palestinian officials routinely go to Israel for major medical care, but PA propaganda discourages it for everyone else, with dark hints that Jewish doctors will offer Arabs only substandard care — if they’re not secretly experimenting on Palestinian patients.
The PA cut its own deals to procure AstraZeneca and Russian Sputnik V vaccines, though the first only began arriving this month. Nor has it made any official (embarrassing) request for Jerusalem to help out. (World Health Organization officials cite only “informal discussions” where they made some such request.)
Note that Israel is vaccinating its Arab citizens. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even visited Arab areas to encourage getting the vax. Many Israeli Arabs in East Jerusalem have done so.
And Jerusalem is also jabbing imprisoned Palestinian terrorists on a priority basis, before many of its own citizens — even as PA propaganda suggests the program is really about conducting medical experiments. But the enemy for NGOs and the United Nations is as it always is, Israel, no matter the facts.