“We are all in this together”, our politicians love to emphasise in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Except, that is, if you are a Palestinian living under Israeli occupation.
On 24 January, Israel’s minister of health, Yuli Edelstein, boasted to the BBC that Israel leads the world in the vaccination of its citizens. In a campaign begun on 20 December, the Israeli health ministry intends to vaccinate fully 5.2 million of its 9 million citizens by the end of March. Yet none of the stateless Palestinians living in the West Bank or besieged Gaza Strip have received a single dose of the vaccine. And, outside of annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli health authorities have no plans to distribute the vaccine in the occupied Palestinian territories.
When quizzed by BBC journalist Andrew Marr as to why Palestinians were being denied the vaccine, Edelstein callously responded that Israel has no legal obligation to provide it. “As far as vaccination is concerned”, he told Marr, “I think it is Israel’s obligation first and foremost to its citizens—they pay taxes for that, don’t they?”
If Marr was anything other than a supine BBC journalist, he might have probed further on this issue. Palestinians living under occupation are forced to pay taxes directly to Israel, despite Israel’s claim that they exercise self-government. And, as an occupying power, Israel is legally obliged to provide food and medical care to the population under its occupation.
Read the article by Nick Everett in Red Flag.