What Amnesty International gets wrong about Israel’s vaccine programme

Israel’s remarkable vaccine rollout has been deservedly praised. But not everyone is full of goodwill. Depressingly and inevitably, commentators and human rights groups have queued up to find a reason to condemn the Jewish state. 

Israel, which is leading the world in the speed of the rollout, has been accused of ‘excluding’ the Palestinians from getting the jab and giving it to ‘settlers’ instead. ‘Denying Covid-19 vaccines to Palestinians exposes Israel’s institutionalised discrimination,’ Amnesty International has claimed.

To people familiar with stories about bogeyman Israel, this is an easy narrative to get behind. But it fails to account for a simple fact: the Palestinian leaders themselves haven’t complained.

Let’s start with the facts. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for its own health services. This is part of its long-held intention to function as an independent state – a status that has been formally recognised by 139 countries. If Israel were responsible for the hospitals, clinics and general civil administration on the West Bank, that truly would be full-fat colonisation. For