Sir, – The animus directed toward Israel in the letters pages of The Irish Times over the past few days is astonishing. That a nation’s international recognition for having the world’s most successful vaccine rollout is subsequently used to further a political agenda is deeply troubling.
Selective quoting from international law has become the preferred cosh with which to further this agenda. Patrick Costello TD, who takes a great interest in Israel, believes the "simple fact" that it is all Israel's fault (Letters, February 10th). He selectively quotes from Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding Israel's "responsibility" of ensuring preventive measures "to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics", while failing to include the critical caveat, "with the co-operation of national and local authorities".
That means the Palestinian Authority has the right to choose whether to accept help from Israel or not. It decided not to accept that help when it chose to ignore an offer of vaccine assistance from Israel’s alternate prime minister Benny Gantz on December 4th. The Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health clearly stated its preference to work on its own to obtain the vaccine, with one senior Palestinian official quoted as saying: “We are not a department in the Israeli Defence Ministry. We have our own government and ministry of health, and they are making huge efforts to get the vaccine.”
That the stateless Palestinian people are at a distinct disadvantage, be it for the procurement of mass vaccinations, or indeed for anything else, is not in doubt. But to relentlessly point the finger of blame at Israel, while never once questioning the Palestinian leadership’s continued stubbornness and intransigence over many decades, not to mention their notorious “pay-for-slay” policy that financially rewards the most heinous crimes against Israelis, is disingenuous and irresponsible.
Israel recognises that it is within everyone’s interests for Palestinians to be vaccinated, especially considering 122,000 West Bank Palestinians regularly cross into Israel for work on a daily basis. Around 400 of those Palestinians were vaccinated on Wednesday at a Magen David Adom station and steps are being taken to provide vaccinations for all 122,000 Palestinians who have Israeli work permits.
Meanwhile, the wider vaccination campaign for Palestinians is well under way, with Israel having transferred an initial 5,000 vaccine doses earmarked for Palestinian medical workers. In doing so, Israel became the first nation in the world to share vaccines with an external population. Israel has also facilitated a delivery to the Palestinian Authority of 10,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of vaccines are due to be delivered via the World Health Organisation’s global programme by the end of February. – Yours, etc,
JACKIE GOODALL,
Executive Director,
Ireland Israel Alliance,
Dublin 2.