THE BURDENS OF EMPIRE:

OK. But why would Israel be expected to vaccinate Palestinians?

An occupying power is required to provide medical care for the people living under its control, according to the Geneva Convention. Liberal Jewish groups like T'ruah and IfNotNow, and Palestinian and human rights advocates, say that because Israel is occupying the West Bank and Gaza it is required to provide vaccines to everyone living there -- not just to the Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, as it has done. [...]

OK. Well in any case shouldn't we be going off of Oslo? The two sides agreed to it and, unlike the Geneva Convention, it was actually tailored to the situation in Israel and Palestine.

That's one way to look at it. But while it doesn't have an expiration date, Oslo wasn't really meant to govern the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians for decades. It was originally intended to be replaced with a final status peace agreement within five years, and with negotiations stalled it hasn't always been adhered to by the Israelis. The Israeli army violated Palestinian autonomy during the Second Intifada to conduct security operations in West Bank cities, and it has failed to allow the Palestinian Authority to run its own population registry and restricts trade, contrary to what some say was provided for in the agreement.

Diana Buttu, a former advisor to the Palestinian Authority, said that Israel is selectively reading Oslo to shirk its responsibility to provide help during the pandemic.

"The Israelis are saying, 'You're good enough to be a state to handle your own vaccines but then you're not really a state when it comes to everything else,'" Buttu said.

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