Thread by @sfrantzman

Thread: I've never seen a clear explanation why the various voices claiming Israel must vaccinate Palestinians include Gaza...but don't claim Israel must provide all the other health care there...only vaccines. It strikes me as just virtue signaling, not a serious argument

Yet these statements say things like: "Equally provide: Israel must fulfill a legal responsibility to make sure all Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, are vaccinated."

What is this "legal" responsibility?

Some say Israel still "occupies" Gaza...but they don't suggest Israel has a "legal" responsibility to run Gaza's health care system...which has been run by the Palestinian Authority and then Hamas for decades. So what is the exact responsibility...theconversation.com/israel-faces-l…

It seems to me that the decision always to try to shoehorn Gaza back into "Israeli occupation" is one reason those with this talking point have so little policy impact...because it's a talking point that isn't based on reality.

If the advocates for the vaccines had a more pragmatic approach, like Israel needs to do better to facilitate and better the process in areas it can affect, transferring international donations to Gaza and helping in the West Bank, then someone might have listened.

This ham-handed approach ordering Israel to fulfill mythical "legal" obligations to Gaza by pretending Israel will forever "occupy" Gaza even decades after leaving, is more about targeting Israel than helping Palestinians. Because the nature of the statements are impossible.

A lot of Israel-centric western statements are like this, they aren't about helping others, it's just about Israel...it's solely about creating an impossible narrative that Israel can't even fulfill anyway...with impossible demands.

During the refugee crisis for instance the same voices would order Israel to accept asylum seekers and pour out wrath on Israel if any were sent back to their home countries...but this betrayed the asylum seekers by not really helping them.

A better response would have been to call on Israel to take some while helping others apply to asylum in a third country, like Canada. That would have helped the poor people rather than leave them in limbo. But it was about Israel-centric, not refugee-centric.

Similarly the vaccines and Palestinians issue isn't Palestinian-centric, it's solely about Israel and "our values" or "tikkun olam" or whatever. it's not about "how do we help Palestinians," it's about "how do we critique Israel."

The same goes for statements about beduin in the Negev of West Bank....it's always about telling Israel this or that...not actually providing a way to help...looking for the future through pragmatic processes. It's Israel-centirc, not beduin-centric.

On almost every statement about Israel, usually pathological and obsessive, usually far beyond the rhetoric applied to other states...it's worth asking...is this about the issue, or about Israel. Remove "Israel" in the story and it no longer matters...

It's worth asking...is this about helping Palestinians get vaccinated, or is this about using them as a tool against Israel, but not really making them the priority. If they were the priority then someone would be seeking vaccines for Gaza.

Everyone knows Israel isn't going to vaccinate Gaza. It's not going to equally distribute them in Tel Aviv and Gaza, why would it? It might facilitate the transfer, but it simply is not going to do everything, it has enough problems just vaccinating its own society.

So the endless rhetoric trying to force Israel to do something everyone knows it won't do...is empty. And it isn't about Palestinians...it's about this notion of "what is Israel doing today, how can we put out a statement about it"...and then do nothing.

After all...those who claimed to care about beduin rights or asylum seekers moved on the second that it was no longer an interesting issue...no longer in media...and so not much changed.

The virtue signal industry in the West that rewards statements over actually accomplishing anything is responsible for this.

An organization that might succeed in helping vaccinate 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza is not a priority. No one organizes that. Instead hundreds sign on to ridiculous statements demanding Israel vaccinate Gaza...knowing full well it won't, so they can say "see, it didn't."

Everyone knows that politics is the art of the possible and being effective should be rewarded, not just statements. if the goal is to help move up the date Palestinians will have easy access to vaccines, most of the rhetoric demanding Israel do it hasn't helped.

A more pragmatic approach would have been last year to say "how can we work with Israel to facilitate vaccines for these areas"...but that sounds more boring than demanding "Israel has a legal responsibility to equally vaccinate Gaza, Ramallah and Tel Aviv"...which won't happen.

States care about their own citizens first. Insofar as they can vaccinate them first, they will. And then come overseas territories and other areas. Israel long ago left Gaza. Sure, it controls most of its borders...but the idea it will treat it equally with its own citizens?

Just acknowledge reality. Israel will vaccinate its own citizens first. Want to be effective? Find a way to see how Israel might then facilitate aid to the West Bank and Gaza. Outlandish demands are designed to fail...to create the self-fulfilling prophecy of "Israel is bad."

And if the goal is just that Israel is bad...then it was never about vaccines, was it. I suggest that Israel-centric statements tend to be predicated only on self-fulfilling prophecies of not accomplishing anything, except serving narratives, not outcome.