On Friday, the Palestinian Authority rejected an Israeli offer to supply up to 1.4 million Pfizer vaccine doses to support its fledgling coronavirus vaccination program. The rejection came after the PA already received 100,000 doses, news reports confirm.
The PA leadership rejected the Israeli offer under the pretext that the promised vaccines would expire in a month or two. According to Israeli officials, the shipped vaccines expire by the end of July. This is nothing unusual. The coronavirus vaccines have a short shelf-life, lasting not more than six months.
The Israeli offers came less than a month after Gaza-based Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 4500 rockets on Israeli towns and cities.
The Jerusalem Post reported the PA rejection of Israeli vaccine delivery:
The Palestinian Authority on Friday evening dramatically announced that it was canceling a deal in which Israel would supply it with some 1 million Pfizer vaccine doses to help with its floundering coronavirus vaccination campaign.The PA said the doses, which Israel began shipping to the West Bank on Friday, are too close to expiring. However, Israeli officials insisted they were fine and should not be wasted.“The professional teams in the ministry found that the vaccines we received today from Israel did not meet the specifications, so the government decided to return them,” said PA Health Minister Mai al-Kaila.However, after some of the vaccines had already been transferred to Palestinian possession, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced late Friday that he was canceling the shipment because they are expiring soon.Israel, however, said it had given the Palestinians that information.
Israel made a generous offer in light of PA leadership’s failure to roll out a proper vaccination program for its people.
The Oslo Accords signed by Israel and the PLO in the 1990s dictate the PA is responsible for the vaccination of the Arab population under its authority. The situation is complicated as Islamic terrorist group Hamas holds power in Gaza, thus cutting it off from PA control.
On the other hand, Israel has been ahead of most countries in vaccinating its population, including the Arab Israelis. “Israel’s mass vaccination drive, which has already given both shots to over half the population, along with lockdown measures, brought down the number of new daily cases (based on a weekly average), from 8,600 at the peak of the health crisis to just 13 on Wednesday,” The Times of Israel reported Friday.
Friday’s move is the latest example of Arab Rejectionism, which has plagued Palestinian politics even before establishing the Jewish State in 1948. Ordinary Palestinians have been the biggest victims of this stance, which has dragged them repeatedly into disastrous wars with Israel and has perpetuated a culture of jihad and antisemitic incitement, which continues to poison the minds of Palestinians growing up under the PA and Hamas control.
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