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We Should Have a Vaccine Against Viral Propaganda

(Mail & Guardian-South Africa) Dan Diker - Even a compassionate reading of Yara Hawari's Mail & Gardian opinion piece "The dark side of Israel's vaccine success story" (Jan. 13, 2021) leads the reader to the unavoidable conclusion that this University of Exeter-educated Palestinian political activist either overlooked or under-researched basic, publicly available information on the rights and responsibilities of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and those of its neighbor, Israel. PA governmental control and Israel's withdrawal from areas under PA jurisdiction were carried out with the signing of the Oslo II interim peace accords, which set up a fully operational health ministry in the PA. This legally binding diplomatic agreement refutes the allegation of Israeli military occupation via a "regime of absolute control" that she erroneously asserts is responsible for vaccinating the Palestinian public in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet Hawari repeats the erroneous term "military occupation" eight times - as if repeating it makes it truer. During my recent visit to the UAE, I was struck by expressions of disgust by UAE leaders toward the PA leadership for turning back plane loads of UAE healthcare assistance to fight Covid-19, just because the planes landed at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport. Had Hawari spent more time in the Palestinian-governed areas talking with officials, she would likely have been informed that the PA delay in securing vaccines was a result of its internal decisions. Had the PA asked Israel for assistance instead of engaging in boycotting of Israeli ministries, the PA would be farther along in vaccinating its public. The writer is a research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2021-01-28 00:00:00
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