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Israel is the envy of the world with respect to how fast it has vaccinated its citizens against COVID-19. As I write, on inauguration day, two million Israelis, 21 percent of the population, have already received their first dose, and many their second as well. No other country in the world comes close in terms of the percentage of the population vaccinated thus far.
That success consists of two components. First, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's success in procuring vaccines for Israel, in a world in which production lags far behind demand. And second, the efficiency of the private health plans in which every Israeli is enrolled.
But with Israel, it is never so simple. Every positive story must have a thorn embedded. Thus, Israel's failure to provide Palestinians with vaccines at the same time provides the best illustration "of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian ones," according to Saleh Hegazi of Amnesty International.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib accused Israel of denying her Palestinian grandmother "access to a vaccine" because "[the Israelis] don't believe she is an equal human being who deserves to live."
Tlaib prevaricated, as usual. Israel has in no way impeded Palestinians from receiving vaccines. Indeed, throughout November and December, the official Palestinian media and health ministry repeatedly boasted that the Palestinian Authority had contracted for sufficient doses to cover 70 percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza, and required no assistance from Israel. Only in the face of Israel's rapid vaccination did the PA start accusing Israel of "racism" and "health apartheid" for not providing vaccines to the Palestinians.
That, Israel has no duty to do. The 1995 Oslo Accords spell out in detail, in Article 17 (Health) of Annex 3, that the Palestinians have final responsibility for health care in areas under their control. That negotiated allocation of responsibility supersedes any other Israeli obligation.
There is nothing remotely racist about Israel giving priority to its own citizens. That does not constitute a statement about the objective value of Palestinian versus Israeli lives, or of Jewish lives over Arab lives. Israel's Arab citizens are being vaccinated just like Israel's Jewish citizens.
Rather Israel's policy is dictated by the responsibility of a nation to take care of its own citizens before those of other countries. The family is the best example of that mutual responsibility. If I pay for my child's wedding or medical care before doing so for my neighbor's child, that is not because I place a higher objective value on my child's life, but because I have a unique responsibility to my child.
Israel's Minister of Health Yuri Edelstein put the matter succinctly: "I don't think there is anyone in this country... who can imagine my taking a vaccine from an Israeli citizen, and with all the goodwill, giving it to our neighbors."
Israel is one nation in which the mutual responsibility of citizens for one another is still taken seriously. In part, that is based on Jewish tradition. In part, on the comparative strength of Israeli families: The family is where the concept of mutual responsibility was once taught.
The failure of the political left in America to take nation and citizenship seriously is what gave rise to the Trump movement, and made immigration such a crucial issue. To open the borders wide, without regard to the safety and livelihoods (particularly of low-income workers) of current citizens is to ignore the responsibility of a nation to its citizens, and they to one another.
Israel, thankfully, has not followed that course. But that has nothing to do with racism.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the international glossy, Mishpacha, where this first appeared. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.