Israel has no obligation to give the Palestinians vaccines

 By ALAN BAKER   JANUARY 16, 2021 

 There is a concerted wave of international criticism and hostility against Israel among states, organizations and the international media regarding vaccines for Palestinians.

This criticism emanates from a number of flawed and misplaced assumptions, or deliberately misleading claims, that Israel is an occupying power, in full occupation of the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.

Following on from that is the mistaken and false assumption that international humanitarian law requires Israel, as an occupying power, to provide medical support and distribute vaccines to the occupied Palestinian population, to provide the funding to enable distribution of vaccines, as well as to ensure and maintain medical and hospital establishments and services.

These assumptions, claims, allegations and accusations are misplaced, misguided and in many respects, emanate from a mixture of ill-will, envy and above all, a deep hostility to Israel and to everything it achieves.

Israel is under no obligation to provide vaccinations to the population of the territories. Israel’s status is not that of an occupying power, and the Fourth Geneva Convention is not applicable to the territories.

Since Israel and the PLO signed the still valid Oslo 2 Accord in 1995, an independent legal regime was established whereby the Palestinian Authority has the full responsibility to govern those parts of the territories that are under its control, including the full civilian responsibility for health and dealing with epidemics, and for importing vaccines and other medical equipment.

The Third (Civilian) annex to the agreement requires the PA and Israel to cooperate and exchange information between them in order to combat epidemics. Nothing more, nothing less.

Israel does not prevent entry of humanitarian and medical equipment, or food and other items required for everyday civilian life to the Gaza Strip. Thousands of trucks deliver goods daily to the Gaza Strip through the passage points.

Israel’s maritime blockade was sanctioned by the United Nations as a legitimate means of preventing the importation of offensive military equipment.

Clearly, in light of the geographic proximity between Israel and the West Bank, areas of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, epidemiological and moral considerations require both Israel and the PA, as well as Hamas, to act with a view to reducing the risk of spreading COVID-19.

To this end, Israel and the Palestinians are cooperating and exchanging information pursuant to their respective obligations under the Oslo Accords.

 

700,000 more coronavirus vaccine doses land in Israel

Some 700,000 Pfizer coronavirus vaccines landed in Israel on Sunday and were met at Ben-Gurion Airport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. 

"This is a great day for Israel with a huge shipment that has arrived in the framework of Operation Back to Life, a plane full of injections of encouragement," Netanyahu said, informing the public that next Sunday an additional shipment would arrive “and we will start vaccinating the next group, people aged 50-60.” 

According to the agreement between Israel and Pfizer, the company will deliver tens of thousands of vaccines to Israel each week until every Israeli who wants to be inoculated has been jabbed. 

To get this done, the prime minister said that the country would increase the number of people vaccinated per day to 170,000 beginning immediately. Later Coronavirus Commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash said that the goal was to vaccinate as many as 200,000 people per day - some with their first doses and some with their second. 

"Tonight, we will sit down with the health funds and prepare for the next stage of the vaccination campaign," Edelstein said.

"I am certain that our amazing medical teams … they will get this done,” Netanyahu added. 

The announcement came on the same day as the Health Ministry announced that more than 72% of Israelis over the age of 60 had been vaccinated against the virus and that Edelstein said he had met with his staff and instructed them to evaluate the possibility of offering vaccinations throughout the night. 

At the airport, Edelstein, like Netanyahu, committed that by mid-March Israel will reach five million vaccinated citizens.

The Health Ministry already is opening up vaccination to educational staff and said that next in line are people over the age of 55. By next week, those over 50 should be able to get the jab. 

The Education Ministry informed teachers on Sunday of the process for getting inoculated and said that the campaign would also include other school staff, such as secretaries, aides and counselors. 

Priority is first being given to those people who are expected to teach during the lockdown, like special education teachers and staff, and those that work with youth-at-risk or in boarding schools. 

It is expected that the first teachers will begin getting inoculated as early as Wednesday. 

So far, more than 1.8 million Israelis have received their first dose of the vaccine, Edelstein reported early Sunday. More than 40,000 Israelis were inoculated on Saturday alone. 

As mentioned, almost three-fourths (72%) of people over the age of 60 have been inoculated, with 59% of all those who have been vaccinated being over 60.

Vaccinating All over 16's by End of March

As of this week, Israel had successfully vaccinated over 1.65 million of its 9.3 million citizens, with 70% of those aged 60 and over getting their first shot of the two-dose vaccine made by the Pfizer pharmaceutical company.

But most of those vaccinated live in or near Israel’s three large urban areas – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa – where the health care infrastructure is set up to receive and administer the temperature sensitive vaccines.

That leaves those living in Israel’s periphery having to travel farther to get inoculated, so Leumit Health Services, one of the country’s four healthcare organizations, sent out the first two coronavirus vaccination units to provide service in remote communities, with two more to join them in the near future.

The first unit was in the small city in the Negev, Tuesday and has already vaccinated hundreds of Leumit members, while the second unit began traveling to towns and villages in Israel’s Arab sector visiting the town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye, in the center of the country.

Two more mobile clinics are to be in operation by the weekend, complementing the dozens of vaccination centers centers the HMO is operating around the country at its existing clinics.

“From now on, Leumit is offering its members a range of possibilities vis-à-vis anti-coronavirus vaccinations including the vaccination points and the mobile units,” said Leumit CEO Haim Fernandes.

Israel has been vaccinating some 150,000 people daily, most of them at clinics operated by the four HMOs. Hospitals are also administering the vaccine to staff and patients, the Israel Defense Forces is inoculating thousands of its medical teams and members of the Magen David Adom national ambulance service were out vaccinating in other communities where clinics were scarce.

“The cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the HMOs, the IDF and the authorities allows Magen David Adom to continue to lead the vaccination campaigns in the most comprehensive manner,” said MDA director Eli Bin.

Over the coming months Israel is expecting the delivery of six million doses of vaccine from the American company Moderna, several million doses from the British company AstraZaneca, and more doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the goal of getting the country immunized and end the pandemic before the summer.

In fact a statement this week says that the immediate aim is to immunise everyone over 16 years by the end of March. (just in time for voting in the elections!)

Arabs: An Extremely Important Voice for Peace

 

• When someone with George Kurdahi's, an influential TV presenter, weight and stature openly states that it is up to the Arab countries to decide whether they want to make peace with Israel, this sends a message to millions of Arabs that the idea of establishing relations with Israel may not be a bad one after all.
• This, needless to say, is a refreshing change, especially because it is coming from a country such as Lebanon, which is effectively ruled by Hezbollah and the mullahs in Iran.
• "If the weapons [of Hezbollah] undermine the State of Lebanon and are an obstacle to the return of many Arabs to Lebanon, then there needs to be re-examination of the situation. Hezbollah must reconsider its positions so that we can ensure a prosperous future for Lebanon." — George Kurdahi, one of the Arab world's most influential TV presenters, YouTube, December 26, 2020, Lebanon.
• Kurdahi may have "shocked" his audience by speaking out in favor of peace with Israel and by criticizing the Palestinians and Hezbollah. His words, however, hardly surprised those who read and listen to what many Arabs in the Gulf have been saying about the Palestinians and Hezbollah, as well as peace with Israel.
• These Arabs also have a clear and powerful opinion of Hezbollah: a manipulative and murderous terrorist group that serves as proxy for the mullahs in Iran and poses a real threat not only to Israel, but to Lebanon and other Arab countries as well.

Full article by Kaled Abu Tomeh here

Israel, UAE Collaborating to Eliminate UNRWA

 

Israel and the United Arab Emirates are working together to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) without solving the issue of Palestinian refugees, the French newspaper Le Monde has reported.

The report alleged that this has been underway since Israel and the UAE announced normalization between them in August.

 According to the report, Emirati officials are considering an action plan intended to gradually eliminate UNRWA, without making this development conditional on a resolution of the refugee problem. This is despite the UAE having been a major source of funding to UNRWA in 2018 and 2019, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to offset US President Donald Trump's halting of funds to the agency, which brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

 "In doing so, Abu Dhabi would be rallying to a long-standing demand from Israel, which insists that the agency is obstructing peace by nurturing refugees in the dream of returning to the lands from which their parents were driven in 1948," a tweet of a portion of the report said.

 Last year in November, the UN General Assembly approved the extension of UNRWA’s mandate for three more years, only a week after its commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned over a UN ethics report alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority among senior officials of the agency, after which Israel called for UNRWA’s closure.

 The ethics report claimed that since 2015, members of UNRWA’s inner circle have been steadily consolidating their power, but that the situation escalated markedly from the beginning of 2018, coinciding with the US decision to remove its funding, serving "as an excuse for an extreme concentration of decision-making power in members of the ‘clique.’” 

It further claimed that these developments led to an “exodus of senior and other staff” and a work culture “characterized by low morale, fear of retaliation... distrust, secrecy, bullying, intimidation, and marginalization... and management that is highly dysfunctional, with a significant breakdown of the regular accountability structure.”

Much of the report focuses on allegations surrounding the conduct of Krahenbuhl, who took up the post in March 2014, citing a range of corrupt and unprofessional activities.

Shortly after the details of the report became known, the Netherlands and Switzerland suspended their funding of UNRWA. They were followed in August 2019 by the government of New Zealand.

Israeli Research Team Turns Corona into the Common Cold

Israeli researchers have made a breakthrough that will

revolutionize the way Covid-19 is treated.

 

Two Ethiopian Israelis win prestigious Rhodes scholarship for Oxford

By TOBIAS SIEGAL   December 10, 2020

The Rhodes scholarship program that offers exceptional candidates from around the world full tuition for studying at Oxford University in England has chosen two Israelis as its winners for 2021.

Two young Israelis – Eli Zuzovsky, 25, and Eden Amare Yitbarek, 23 originally from Ethiopia  – were chosen by the Rhodes selection committee following "a rigorous national selection process" that included 40 Israeli candidates, 12 finalists, and two "exceptional" winners, a Rhodes Trust press release noted.

"We are thrilled to honor these two exceptional Israelis with a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University,"  according to Doron Weber, National Secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for Israel, noting Zuzovsky's and Yitbarek's exceptional contribution in understanding and representing Israeli society.  

"We had an outstanding group of candidates, and the entire committee was deeply impressed by Eden's and Eli's personal journeys and their extraordinary moral character, academic excellence, leadership and powerful example in speaking for underrepresented groups in Israeli society."

The winners will begin their studies at Oxford this fall and will receive full tuition, a living stipend, housing expenses and more, allowing them to pursue their academic endeavors unfettered and to the fullest.

Zuzovsky's and Yitbarek's winning of the 2021 Rhodes scholarship marks the 5th cycle of the scholarship program in Israel, which started in 2016.