Lessons of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for Public Health: The Case of the COVID-19 Vaccination Gap

Yara Dahdal, Nadav Davidovitch, Michael Gilmont, Javier Lezaun, Maya Negev, Deborah Sandler and Mohammed Shaheen
Additional contact information
Yara Dahdal: Nature Palestine Society, Ramallah 9993900, Palestine
Nadav Davidovitch: School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel
Michael Gilmont: Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PN, UK
Javier Lezaun: Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PN, UK
Maya Negev: School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Deborah Sandler: Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Kibbutz Ketura, Hevel Eilot 88840, Israel
Mohammed Shaheen: Damour for Community Development, Ramallah 6063139, Palestine

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-7

Abstract: In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a faceless, non-adversarial threat that endangered Israelis and Palestinians with the same ferocity. However, the capacities of the health systems to address it were not equal, with Israel more equipped for the outbreak with infrastructure, resources, manpower and later, vaccines. The pandemic demonstrated the life-saving benefits of cooperation and the self-defeating harms brought by non-cooperation. These trends are explored here by an international team of public health and environmental scholars, including those from different sides of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This article explores the importance of recognizing the Israeli and Palestinian jurisdictions as a single epidemiological unit, and illustrates how doing so is a pragmatic positioning that can serve self-interest. We demonstrate how despite political shocks precipitating non-cooperation, there has been a recurrent tendency towards limited cooperation. The paper concludes with lessons over the need for reframing public health as a potential bridge, the need for structural changes creating sustainable platforms for accelerated transboundary cooperation to enable the steady management of current and future public and environmental health crises regardless of dynamic political crises, and the importance of civil society and international organizations in forging collaboration in advance of governmental engagement.

Keywords: conflict; COVID-19; climate change; one epidemiological unit; MENA; Israel; Palestine; cooperation; non-cooperation; health systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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