As a Jew, it makes me feel sick to see my people treat others as subhuman. My expectation is that of generosity, open democracy, freedom of religion, respect for international law, and demilitarization, but apparently US/Israeli geostrategy is having none of that.
As an Israeli I always wonder why people who live in the US or Europe think they have some special insight into Israel/Palestine by merit of being Jewish or Muslim.
Israel is vaccinating Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. It actually runs special promotion campaigns (including the PM visiting Nazareth) because some in Arab population are reluctant to take it.
It does not vaccinate Palestinians in the Palestinian controlled areas as it has no authority to do so. Furthermore, Abbas and the PA leadership make a point of not allowing their citizens access to Israeli healthcare (though they did make sure to get vaccinated themselves).
Some time ago my wife was involved in an effort to provide life saving medical care to a Palestinian child in an Israeli hospital. The hospital waved all costs and the treating surgeon was in daily touch with her. The PA refused to allow the child entrance into Israel to receive that care. This wasn't an isolated case, it's PA policy.
I think it's an unreasonably high standard to expect Israel to vaccinate Palestanians in the occupied territories before Israelis. Going from that stance to saying (all?) Israelis treat Palestinians as subhuman is also a bit of a stretch. Are Americans treating Canadians as subhumans by not allowing Pfizer to ship vaccines from its US factory to Canada? In Judaism "the poor of your city" come first. What other country in the world is giving their bought vaccine allotment first to someone else or promoting anything that looks like worldwide equal distribution where every human on this planet has equal access?
And sure, as a fellow Jew I'd like to believe we're better than everyone else, but hey, we're not. I guess maybe better than some.
The complexity of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can't be reduced to these simplistic terms. Anyone can take some specific incident or piece of data out of context and make their case around it, and all sides take every opportunity to do so while at the same time refusing to accept any responsibility to how they got to where things stand today.
I do hope that once Israel has finished vaccinating its population it will extend the additional vaccines to the PA and to Gaza, I think it's in their own interest and it's the right thing to do.
I think giving first priority to Israeli citizens when Palestine is under occupation is the definition of second class. There should be some kind of even distribution based on proportion of population. If they don't want the responsibility, they should withdraw barricades and forces from Palestine.
See how well that turned out in Gaza. Regardless of final status outcomes, defended borders will remain. If only the PA did not pay for slay[0] and had enough money to secure vaccines on the open market.
>they should withdraw
barricades and forces from Palestine. The oslo accords, gaza withdrawl. They were attempts to give palestinians autonomy. They were disasters. Israel need to continue occupation purely to ensure their own survival.
