The Palestinian Authority shot itself in the foot with its decision to reject up to 1.4 million Israeli vaccines that could have enabled it to inoculate its citizens months earlier than planned.
On Friday, less than a week since Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new broad-based coalition was sworn in, Israel announced that the country had reached a deal to immediately transfer Pfizer vaccines that were nearing their expiration date to the Palestinians in exchange for the same number later on.
The PA had ordered vaccines from Pfizer back in April, but the company said they were not expected to be delivered for at least several more months.
The shipment, on top of the one million vaccines promised to the Palestinians under the United Nations-related COVAX program, could have allowed for up to 40% of the Palestinians to be vaccinated by the end of the year.
The Palestinian health minister initially praised the deal, but after coming under intense internal pressure, she used the fact that the first 100,000 vaccines, which were already delivered, were set to expire in the next 12 days to foil the entire deal.
“The decision to return the vaccines we received from Israel was made after our professional teams discovered that the vaccines did not meet our standards,” Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said during a press conference.
From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel has been hammered by the international community for its failure to address the lack of injections for Palestinians, while becoming one of the first nations to achieve herd immunity.
Although the exchange was already in the works under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the fact that it was going through under Bennett could have enabled the Palestinians to start off on the right foot with a new administration and vice versa.
Bennett appeared to be trying to prove the PA’s judgment of him wrong.
Last week, the PA said in a statement that “we estimate that Netanyahu’s policies will not change, and they could even be worse.”
Contrary to the preconceived notions of the PA, Bennett appeared to be transforming the COVID-19 vaccines into a positive public relations coup.
It could also have helped establish an atmosphere that would allow US President Joe Biden to launch a peace process if he so desired.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid had hinted on Friday that the move was only a first step.
“We will continue to find effective ways to cooperate for the benefit of people in the region,” Lapid tweeted.
Moreover, it served as a reminder that the Health Ministry is now under Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz, who has spent his career fighting for justice and human rights.
Former health minister Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post that he did not even know the name of his counterpart, yet on the day of the vaccine announcement, Horowitz spoke to Kaila.
The minister stressed to Kaila the importance of the move, which will reduce morbidity in the PA, without harming Israel’s vaccine inventory.
“The coronavirus does not recognize borders and does not differentiate between people,” Horowitz told his counterpart. “This important move is in the interest of all parties. I hope and believe that this move will promote cooperation between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in other areas as well.”
The move should have helped calm the fires of international human rights groups that have accused Israel of skirting its moral and legal obligations to the Palestinians, including Amnesty International accusing Israel of “institutionalized discrimination.”
Israeli health officials have long argued that not only from a public health perspective but also from a humanitarian perspective, Israel should have planned to inoculate the Palestinians.
The failure to do so was seen by the liberal Diaspora community, as well as those on the Center-Left of the Israeli political map, as an avoidable public relations catastrophe that provided anti-Israel forces with additional leverage by which to attack the Jewish state.
Most importantly, it would have helped keep Israelis and Palestinians safer.
Latest figures show that 383,984 Palestinians have been vaccinated in the West Bank, and 52,291 in Gaza have received at least one dose, based on data from the World Health Organization.
The Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank numbers some 4.8 million people, of which around 36% are aged under 14, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.
Overall, 557,700 vaccines had been delivered to the West Bank and 225,700 to Gaza prior to the new Pfizer deal, according to the WHO.
To date, Israel has vaccinated only several thousand Palestinian healthcare workers and around 100,000 West Bank residents who work inside Israel.
Inoculating the Palestinians would help prevent cross-border infection, including new mutations, and help ensure public health because of the high-level of interaction between the two populations.
It also could have saved Palestinian lives.
To date, more than 3,800 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have died of the virus and there are still nearly 4,000 active cases, according to WHO.
Given the challenges that the PA has had for the last 12 years during Netanyahu’s regime, accepting vaccines from Israel would have provided a small window of hope that its relationship with the Jewish state could be on a new course.