Fact Checking the Arab Media

On December 22, 2021, CNN reporters Andrew Carey, Elliot Williams and Hadas Gold published a piece entitled: “Israel begins fourth Covid-19 dose vaccine rollout for people 60 and over as Omicron cases surge” The authors made several claims, including: 1) “Israel is to begin rolling out a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine with immediate effect for people ages 60 and over, medical workers and people with suppressed immune systems, the Prime Minister's Office announced Tuesday…;” 2) “When it comes to Covid-19, it seems where Israel leads, the rest of the world follows, with the country offering other nations a glimpse into the pandemic's future for nearly a year;” and 3) “Israel has been at the forefront of vaccination rollouts for adults and teenagers, pioneered a vaccine passport and, in recent months, has spearheaded the use of booster shots.”

The claims that Israel is rolling out a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine “with immediate effect for people ages 60 and over” and that the country is “at the forefront of vaccination rollouts for adults and teenagers” are both misleading assertions since they are bereft of any acknowledgment of the millions of people living within Israeli-controlled territory who are not eligible for the vaccine program, namely the Palestinians. Almost since the start of the pandemic, several human rights organizations have pointed out the stark vaccine inequality in Israel’s vaccine administration process. According to Amnesty International, Israel’s vaccine rollout only covers citizens of Israel, while excluding 5 million Palestinians that live under Israeli military occupation.

Although CNN mentions that “almost all vaccinated citizens have received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine [emphasis added],” no reference is made to the concerns and violations raised by human rights groups regarding Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, leaving the unknowing reader in the dark about a crucial caveat to what the Israeli Premier is further quoted by CNN as claiming: Mainly that Isreal “stands at the forefront of the global effort to deal with the pandemic.”

In the Amnesty report mentioned above - “Denying COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians exposes Israel’s institutionalized discrimination” - Saleh Higazi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International said:

Furthermore, according to the BBC, the United Nations (UN) human rights body has asserted that, “it is the responsibility of Israel to provide equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.” Their statement added that “differential access is ‘morally and legally’ unacceptable under international law laid out in the Geneva Conventions on the regulation of occupied territories.” The International Committee of Jurists has also echoed the disappointment over Israel’s strategy in its October 2021 report entitled, “Israel: Ensure full access to COVID-19 vaccines in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “This gross disparity in access to vaccines is a direct result of Israel’s exclusion of the Palestinian population from its vaccination drive,” said Vito Todeschini, Legal Adviser at the ICJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

While Israel has indeed offered a third and now a fourth dose of the covid vaccine to its citizens, less than 30 percent of Palestinians have received two doses, according to Our World in Data. This vaccination rate is less than half of that for Israeli citizens, over 65 percent of whom have been fully vaccinated. Moreover, when it comes to the vaccine supply origins, Palestinian vaccines have largely come from Europe, as Relief Web reported – and not its territorial administrator, Israel. In fact, a deal for Israel to supply 1 million vaccines to Palestinians in exchange for donated vaccines from the international community was rejected by the Palestinian authority reportedly due to the substandard quality of the soon-to-expire vaccines Israel had offered, as Al Jazeera reported.

As such, any praise for Israel’s vaccine rollout is misleading if it does not mention the important condemnation of its discriminatory practices in vaccine availability when it comes to the Occupied Territories. Furthermore, any reporting on Israel’s vaccine rollout numbers or booster shots should be qualified by the fact that rollout in Israel-administered Palestinian territories is well below the global average. The fact that its long-overdue plan to offer Palestinians a dose of the vaccine was contested as substandard by the Palestinian Autority should also accompany any story about Israel’s pioneering efforts for its own citizens in the global fight against the virus.