This is appalling, and also stupid.

[conuly]

COVID Vaccines for Gaza Isn't Charity. It's Israel's Legal and Humanitarian Duty

Israel on track to have vaccinated 10% of citizens by weekend but Palestinians might wait months

Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are not included in the vaccine drive, leading to accusations the country is skirting moral, humanitarian and legal obligations.

While Israeli settlers living deep inside the West Bank are already being vaccinated, Palestinians around them may have to wait for months.

[...]

Israeli officials have suggested they might provide surplus vaccines to Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority has not officially asked for help.

This attitude is so callous and depraved that I was shocked. I went to google in the hopes that this article was wrong or at least misleading, but thus far the search results for "israel palestinian covid vaccination" aren't promising.

Not only is this an absolute abdication of the moral responsibility we all have to one another, but it's stupid. By failing to vaccinate neighbors of Israeli settlers, you're continuing to put those settlers at risk for COVID. (And also, honestly, for another round of tit-for-tat retaliations, though I suppose that if the Israeli government cared about that it'd make some wildly different policy decisions.)

Comments

[sabotabby]

Oh, of course. I wish I could be surprised.

[conuly]

Here in the US, of course, many states had no intention of vaccinating prisoners, despite them being at high risk. (This is also fundamentally stupid.) I thought that was the very depths of inhumanity, but I was apparently wrong.

[moon_custafer]

arrgh

[dewline]

Israel and Palestine alike deserve better than this.

[conuly]

Oh, yes.

[wpadmirer]

I despise the way the Palestinians are treated by Israel. It makes me crazy.

[gwydion]

The conservative agenda at work.

[thewayne]

It's absolutely par for the course for Israel, sadly.

I saw where the spy Jonathan Pollard and his wife were flown to Israel in a private jet by Sheldon Adelson after Pollard was convicted of giving military secrets to Israel and spent 30 years in prison. He finally finished the terms of his parole and was allowed to leave the country, and was greeted by Benji as a hero.

[ironymaiden]

something i find interesting is that i've seen two memorable Israeli documentaries that were critical of Israel's handling of the West Bank and the use of accusations of anti-semitism to silence opposition. both of them were festival screenings - the films seem to have had no distribution and disappeared without a trace.

[conuly]

It's complicated, because make no mistake about it, there's definitely people whose complaints against Israel are rooted in little more than anti-Semitism, and lots of raging anti-Semites who like to claim that their attacks against Jews has somehow to do with the Israeli government even if the Jews in question have no particular connection to Israel at all. But... you can also hate Jews and still claim to "support Israel" for a wide variety of reasons.

[dorchadas]

Israel has a lot of the same cultural issues and problems as the US right now--increasing influence of religion in public (with the added "bonus" of a state religion), conservative government wracked by scandal, us-vs-them mentality, the Left not really knowing how to effectively organize and argue, marginalized groups (Mizrahim in this case) repeatedly voting for conservatives--with the Occupation and mandatory IDF service adding an extra layer on top of that. That the films weren't picked up doesn't really surprise me, any more than a critically-acclaimed film about prison labor in America not being picked up would.

[silveradept]

Well, that's not surprising, even if we had hoped that they might be more humane during a pandemic.