On the issue of distributing vaccines against "Corona"

Israel prefers its distant friends over the Palestinians

Israel distributed a symbolic quantity of vaccines to the Palestinians.

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The Israeli government has pledged to send thousands of doses of additional vaccines against the Corona virus to its foreign allies, which ignites controversy over Israel's responsibility for the people close to it, namely the Palestinians who live under occupation.

Last Tuesday, the governments of Czechia and Honduras confirmed that Israel had promised them to send 5,000 vaccine doses each from the "Moderna" company. The Israeli media reported that a similar quantity of vaccines would be sent to Hungary and Guatemala, but the Hungarian and Israeli governments declined to comment on the news. The Guatemalan government did not respond when asked to comment.

Donation is the latest example of an expression of soft power, as vaccine diplomacy, where vaccine-rich countries seek to reward, or influence those countries that cannot get many vaccines.

In the race for influence in Asia, China and India have donated thousands of doses of vaccines to their neighbors.

Last week, Israel promised to buy tens of thousands of doses for the benefit of the Syrian government, despite the hostility between them, in exchange for the release of an Israeli civilian detained inside Syria.

The vaccines promised by Israel on Tuesday were provided without conditions, but tacitly reward these countries' recent gestures with their tacit acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians regard as their capital.

Guatemala has moved its embassy to Jerusalem, while Honduras has pledged to move its embassy to Jerusalem as well.

Hungary established a commercial mission in Jerusalem as well, while the Czech Republic promised to open a diplomatic office also in Jerusalem.

Israel provided at least one dose of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine to nearly half of its population of about nine million people, including those living in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which makes it at the forefront of the world in using vaccines.

This is what made the Israeli government able to support its international relations with surplus supplies of "Moderna" vaccines.

Anger

But this step angered the Palestinians, because it suggests that Israel's allies have more priority than the Palestinians living in the occupied territories, who should all receive vaccinations from Israel.

And the latter had pledged to provide vaccines to the five million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, equivalent to twice the number that it allocated to distant countries.

The Israeli government says that the Palestinian Authority was given the responsibility to regulate its healthcare sector in the 1990s, after the signing of the Oslo Accords that granted the Palestinian leadership limited self-rule in parts of the occupied territories.

Israel donated 2,000 doses of vaccine to the Palestinian Authority, and promised to deliver another 3,000, a symbolic number given the Palestinian population.

Although Israel indicated that it would send more, it did not formalize any other details.

"A few weeks ago there were questions about whether we had enough vaccines for our people," said Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now that it has become clear that we do have, we can be more cooperative with our neighbors, ”Regev added,“ The virus will not stop at the borders, and we have a great interest that the priority now is for the Palestinians. ”

But on Tuesday evening, an Israeli security official said that the military administration, which is coordinating between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, had not received any government mandate to transfer more vaccines to the Palestinian Authority.

Human rights organizations say that Israel should organize a systematic vaccination program in the occupied territories, instead of sending small quantities that do not exceed a few thousand doses at a time.

The organizations mentioned the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges any occupying power in coordination with local authorities to maintain public health within the occupied territories, including during periods of epidemics.

Human rights organizations indicated that the government of Israel not only controls all imports from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also, according to recent warrants, to the International Criminal Court, it opposed Palestinian demands for a sovereign state.

“It is an oppressive regime,” said Salem Brahma, executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy, a group that advocates for Palestinian rights, based in Ramallah. The vaccine is not offered to millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation. ”

Patrick Kingsley is in charge of the New York Times office in Jerusalem

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Human rights organizations say that Israel should organize a systematic vaccination program in the occupied territories, instead of sending small quantities not exceeding a few thousand doses each time.

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