JERUSALEM (PA) – When it comes to obtaining hard-to-obtain coronavirus vaccines, Israel’s friends find that the road seems to pass through Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday acknowledged sharing coronavirus vaccines with a number of friendly countries that have favored Israel in the past. Although he did not identify the countries, a list obtained by an Israeli television station suggested that several of them supported Israel’s claim to the disputed city of Jerusalem as its capital.
The comments came at a time when Israel is facing international criticism for not doing more to share its vast stock of vaccines with the Palestinians. They also illustrated how, in a time of global shortage, the vaccine has become an asset. which can be used for diplomatic gain.
“As an occupying power, Israel is responsible for the health of all people under its control,” US Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on Twitter. “It is outrageous that Netanyahu would use reserve vaccines to reward his foreign allies, while so many Palestinians in the occupied territories are still waiting.”
Although Israel does not make its own vaccines, Netanyahu has overseen one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns, delivering millions of doses from drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna. Speaking at a news conference, he said Israel had already vaccinated more than 5 million people with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and could complete the task of inoculating its 6.2 million adults in a few weeks.
He also said that Israel has an excessive amount of hundreds of thousands of Modern vaccines.
After establishing that Israel had “more than enough” vaccines for its own population, he said he had personally decided to share what he called a symbolic number of doses with some of Israel’s allies.
He said it was done “in exchange for the things we have already received, through numerous contacts in various fields that I will not detail here,” Netanyahu said. “I think he buys absolutely goodwill.”
Israeli public broadcaster Kan said about 100,000 Moderna vaccines are being shipped to about 15 allies.
These include Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, Uganda and the Czech Republic – countries that have recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or expressed interest in opening diplomatic offices following the Trump administration’s relocation of the US Embassy to the city in 2018.
Chad, which established diplomatic ties with Israel in 2019, Mauritania, which is believed to be on the verge of re-establishing relations, and several other African countries with close security ties to Israel, including Ethiopia and Kenya, have also appeared on the list. .
Asked about Netanyahu using his vaccines as a diplomatic tool, Moderna declined to comment.
The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed, as the capital of a future state. Concurrent claims to the city have been at the heart of the decades-long conflict, and most of the international community says the fate of Jerusalem must be resolved through negotiations.
Netanyahu noted that Israel has also pledged to share some vaccines with Palestinians. Israel administered only 2,000 doses of Moderna to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority to inoculate medical workers in the West Bank.
Otherwise, Palestinians have struggled to get their own vaccines. The Palestinian Authority received 10,000 doses of Russian Sputnik V vaccine, while a rival of President Mahmoud Abbas delivered another 20,000 Sputnik vaccines this week in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. after arranging delivery from the United Arab Emirates.
Together, these vaccines will cover only a small part of the millions of Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority has said it expects to receive more vaccines through the World Health Organization’s COVAX program and other agreements, but it is unclear when the drugs will arrive.
Wasel Abu Yusuf, a senior Palestinian official, accused Netanyahu of playing politics with a humanitarian issue.
“He uses the vaccines needed by some countries to gain political support for his policies, such as moving embassies to Jerusalem,” he said. “The quantities of vaccines he talks about about the administration of the Palestinians in the West Bank are very small.”
Inequity has drawn attention to the global disparity in vaccines between rich and poor nations and has led to some international criticism.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said it was understandable that Israel would want to take care of its own citizens first. But “at some point it becomes ethically grotesque,” he said.
He said that beyond having a moral responsibility to the Palestinians, it would be smart to help them.
“The reason it’s smart is that it would gain enormous benefits for Israel in its reputation in the region and globally,” he said. “The failure to distribute the vaccine will not be forgotten, because so many people die unnecessarily from a preventable disease.”
UN officials and human rights groups have expressed concern about inequity and said that Israel is an occupying power responsible for providing vaccines to the Palestinians.
Israel says it has no such responsibility under the 1990 interim peace agreements. Israel has vaccinated its own Arab population, including the Palestinians in East Jerusalem annexed by Israel.
But Israeli public health experts have called on the government to share the vaccines, given the widespread contact between Israelis and Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers work in Israel or in its West Bank settlements.
The Biden administration has refrained from criticizing Israel, but has expressed support for sharing vaccines with Palestinians. “We believe it is important for Palestinians to gain increased access to the COVID vaccine in the coming weeks,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. “It is important for Israel, the health and safety of Israel as well.
Netanyahu’s decision to share vaccines with the Allies caught fire at home. His main rival and governing partner, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, said Netanyahu made the decision unilaterally, without deliberation or oversight.
“The fact that Netanyahu sells vaccines to Israeli citizens who have been paid out of their tax money without any responsibility shows that he believes he runs a kingdom and not a state,” Gantz said this week.
___
AP correspondents Laurie Kellman of Tel Aviv and Matthew Lee of Washington contributed to the reporting.