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<font size="1"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/fauci-champions-israeli-medical-apartheid">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/fauci-champions-israeli-medical-apartheid</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Fauci champions Israeli medical apartheid</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> - <span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog"></span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">19 February 2021</span></span> </p>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2021-02/upiphotostwo781169_1.jpg?itok=utVG9lp1×tamp=1613775650" alt="" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="426" height="284"><p>Anthony Fauci punted when asked about Israel’s refusal to provide vaccines to Palestinians living under its military rule.</p><small>
<span>UPI</span></small><p>Dr. Anthony Fauci, the
immunologist and chief medical adviser to the US president, has given
his implicit endorsement of Israeli medical apartheid.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/fauci-to-toi-israeli-vaccine-effort-a-model-for-rest-of-the-world/">interview</a> with <em>The Times of Israel</em>, Fauci lauded Israel’s <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/covid-19">COVID-19</a> vaccination program as a “model for the rest of the world,” crediting the socialized healthcare system in the country.</p>
<p>Israel has been lionized for its supposedly comprehensive vaccine rollout, with outlets like <em>The New York Times</em> saying it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/world/middleeast/israel-virus-vaccination.html">points to a way out</a> of the pandemic.</p>
<p>The only trouble is that Israel is refusing to distribute vaccines to millions of people living under its <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/top-israeli-rights-group-breaks-apartheid-taboo">single system of unequal rule</a>.</p>
<p>If anything, Israel exemplifies the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/who-warns-inequitable-vaccine-distribution-helps-covid-thrive.html">deeply inequitable</a> global allocation of vaccines that will only allow COVID-19 to thrive.</p>
<p>The reality of Israel’s <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/01/denying-covid19-vaccines-to-palestinians-exposes-israels-institutionalized-discrimination/">discriminatory</a> vaccine rollout is hardly worthy of praise.</p>
<p>Fauci’s adulations are a major propaganda gift to Israel, which seeks
to be viewed as a bastion of technical innovation rather than a brutal
occupier.</p>
<p><em>The Times of Israel</em> asked Fauci whether the country should “help vaccinate neighboring Palestinians.”</p>
<p>The publication notes that “Fauci responded carefully” to the question.</p>
<p>“You’re asking me a political question, and I don’t want to go there. That only gets me into trouble,” he replied.</p>
<h2>Obligation not benevolence</h2>
<p>The very framing of the question as to whether Israel should “help”
its “neighbors” is fundamentally flawed, whitewashing the reality that
five million Palestinians live under its military rule.</p>
<p>Providing vaccinations is not simply a matter of Israel acting benevolently to a neighbor. It’s a matter of Israel <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/israels-vaccination-program-morally-indefensible">fulfilling its obligations under international law</a>.</p>
<p>As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for the public health of the people living in the territory it occupies.</p>
<p>Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention makes “particular
reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and
preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious
diseases and epidemics.”</p>
<p>Providing vaccinations to Palestinians is not a matter of politics or
plain morality but of rights and responsibilities. Israel has utterly
failed to uphold its obligations at the expense of Palestinian public
health.</p>
<p>But even if it were a matter of Israeli generosity and benevolence
towards a “neighbor,” it’s telling that Fauci couldn’t just give a
straightforward “yes” for an answer.</p>
<p>Fauci has <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-anthony-fauci-pandemic-will-end-with-vaccination-solidarity/ar-BB1cAInI">explicitly called</a> for vaccine “solidarity between countries” as critical to ending the pandemic.</p>
<p>Why are Palestinians excluded from this basic concern for humanity?</p>
<h2>Medical apartheid</h2>
<p>Israelis living in West Bank settlements, built in violation of
international law, are able to receive inoculations but not Palestinians
living in the same territory under the same state authority.</p>
<p>There’s a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/apartheid">word</a> for this kind of state-sanctioned separate and unequal treatment.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, Israel <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-uses-vaccines-bargaining-chips">delayed the transfer</a>
of vaccine doses acquired by the Palestinian Authority for frontline
medical workers in the Gaza Strip. Some Israeli lawmakers sought to
condition the transfer of vaccines on political concessions from Hamas.</p>
<p>Under a severely tightened Israeli blockade since 2007, the Gaza
Strip is one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
Israel’s siege has “pushed Gaza’s healthcare system to the brink of
collapse,” Palestinian human rights groups have warned.</p>
<p>All aspects of Palestinian life, including the right to health, are
harmed by Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonization and
apartheid.</p>
<p>Decades of “de-development and economic subordination” have prevented
Palestinians from access to vaccines, as the corporate watchdog Who
Profits <a href="https://twitter.com/Who_Profits/status/1354364233912348672">notes</a>.
</p>
Meanwhile, Israel <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/israel-still-won-t-vaccinate-palestinian-workers-but-lets-them-return-to-west-bank-1.9550858">refuses to vaccinate</a> the <a href="https://merip.org/2020/05/palestinian-workers-in-israel-caught-between-indispensable-and-disposable/">vulnerable</a> Palestinian workers who serve as its captive and disposable labor force.
<p>And while undocumented persons and status-less non-Palestinian
refugees and migrant workers in Israel are eligible to receive
vaccinations, Palestinians from the West Bank living in the country are <a href="https://www.972mag.com/covid-vaccine-palestinians-undocumented/">being turned away</a>.</p>
<p><em>The Times of Israel</em> interviewed Fauci on the occasion of his winning the $1 million <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/dan-david-prize">Dan David Prize</a> awarded by a foundation based at Tel Aviv University.</p>
<p>That university is <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/palestinians-urge-international-speakers-withdraw-eurovisions-conference-tel-aviv-university">deeply complicit</a> in Israel’s system of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid against Palestinians.</p>
<p>A prize that big may make it tempting to turn away from the reality
of Israeli medical apartheid. But that doesn’t make it right.</p>
<p>By treating Palestinian rights as a “political question,” Fauci is undermining the work of groups who are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/17/israel-provide-vaccines-occupied-palestinians">calling on Israel</a> to fulfill its obligations under international law.</p>
<p>That is a political act, and a very shameful one to be sure.</p><br>
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