Settler leader suggests PA terror funds should be used to vaccinate Palestinians
Palestinian Authority funds to issue monthly payments to terrorists and their families should be used to fund vaccines for the Palestinian population, Yesha Council head David Elhayani said.
He urged the State of Israel to withhold an amount equivalent to that monetary sum from the tax fees it collects on behalf of the PA.
That money should then be redirected so that Israel can purchase vaccines for the Palestinians, Elhayani said.
In the past the Palestinian Authority has spent some half-abillion shekels a year on such payments.
Elhayani issued his call jointly with a Palestinian activist and businessman Mohammad Masad, who is initially from the Jenin area, but who now lives in Haifa, and is dedicated to relations with Israel.
He has a history of interacting with settler leaders and on Monday met with Elhayani in the Jordan Valley to discuss the issue of vaccines for the Palestinians.
“On behalf of both of us I call on the Israeli government to vaccinate the Palestinians. We live together, both in Judea and Samaria and in the State of Israel, and it is time to vaccinate everyone,” Elhayani said.
Masad said: “I came here to make it clear to everyone that the future of our children is in our hands.
“Either we will establish a future for them without bloodshed or we will leave them to the fate we have lived,” Masad said.
“The vaccine, just as it is important to us and will maintain our health, so it will also maintain your health.”
Some Israeli health experts have said that the speed of the virus can only be properly halted when both populations have been vaccinated.
Israel was able to purchase enough vaccines to inoculate its population but the PA has not been as successful and at present, global supplies are low and there are not enough vaccines to meet the demand.
Lack of funding has been one of the sticking points for the PA. Even pledged donations to purchase vaccines have been slow to arrive. Israel has purchased enough vaccines for both populations but used its available supply on its own citizens first.
It’s believed that Israel plans to provide vaccines to the Palestinians when they are available. In the interim it is in the process of vaccinating 120,000 Palestinian workers and has also donated 5,000 doses to the Palestinians. The PA also received at least 90,000 doses from donors, including a global vaccination program affiliated with the United Nations.
Ahead of Israel’s elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yamina Party head Naftali Bennett and New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar are each touting their economic plans as being better than that of their competitors. But can any of them really help solve Israel’s woes?
“The political and public discourse is extremely superficial and shallow,” said Tel Aviv University economist Prof. Dan Ben-David, president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research. “It’s like there’s no cost to just say whatever comes to your mind. But the issues affecting the country are fundamental, and as we come out of the pandemic, there is a tremendous opportunity right now to try to address problems at their roots.”
While Netanyahu has put forward packages to help small businesses recover from the pandemic, boost employment, and promote hi-tech growth, Bennett’s “Singapore Plan” would seek to double Israel’s standard of living by improving economic management, transparency and considerable tax cuts. But “Bennett’s plan is old, essentially a supply-side plan from the time of US president Ronald Reagan,” according to Prof. Elise Brezis, professor of economics at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Aharon Meir Center for Economic Policy.
“Israeli politicians understand that there is no reason to present a serious economic policy during elections, because everything needs to be negotiated among the parties,” Brezis said. “They know that there is no sense in presenting a complex plan that you won’t be able to implement.”
So what would a serious plan entail? Ben-David puts forth a series of issues he believes are most critical for Israel.
First, Israel needs a transparent budget, so that there can be a public debate about funding allocations. Right now, there is no way for the public to know where tax money is going, or how well it is at achieving certain goals.
Second, the country needs to increase law enforcement to clamp down on the shadow economy and address budget issues. “If we were to reduce our shadow economy to German or American levels, we would increase GDP by NIS 100-200 billion, and increase tax income by NIS 40-60b. For comparison, the entire Health Ministry budget is about NIS 35b. Getting our hands on that money would be a game-changer.”
Third, a long-term look at education is necessary to address employment and economic growth. “During the crisis, we saw clearly how a small part of society in Israel’s productive hi-tech sector thrived, while the large part of the population with low professional skills suffered. We need to offer much more serious vocational and professional skills training to upgrade people’s skill levels and advance their potential. But that’s for adults right now. For our kids, the education system is the worst in the developed world, and has been dysfunctional for decades. Half of the kids in Israel are getting a third-world education for math, science and reading. So if you think we have a problem today with the adults, just imagine what’s going to happen here in another generation. We need systemic comprehensive reform of the education system.”
Finally, Ben-David said, we need to address demographic issues. “We need to talk about the haredim. What we have seen over the last year is an ultra-Orthodox leadership that’s enabled by the government to completely control the flow of information to its people, depriving their children of a core curriculum that would enable them to contribute to the economy and advocating policies that are endangering their lives. They are a fifth of the country’s children now and are projected to be half of the nation’s kids in two generations. So we need to change things now because they are going to be harder to change in the future.”
Ben-David says he is an optimist. “This election offers the opportunity to fix things that no one touched. This is the first time that it isn’t Right against Left, or religious against secular. The past year gave us a great opportunity to see the country’s problems up close, and we need to use it to fix things now. We need to bring people together around a vision for 20 years into the future, not just empty slogans.”
DUBAI – From wedding photographers in Israel to restaurateurs in Dubai, life has changed overnight for 25-year-olds Elroi Worcman and Avichai Kadosh.
The two friends have opened Dubai’s first Israeli restaurant, Mul Hayam, a kosher concept with views of the iconic Burj Al Arab. It really is opposite the sea, as its Hebrew name suggests, set in a small fishing port along the picturesque Dubai coastline.
Worcman, from Beersheba, first came to Dubai in November on one of the first direct flights, on flydubai. As he was in his 24-hour quarantine awaiting his PCR test results, he tuned in to the news only to hear of threats to Israelis holidaying in the Gulf city in the wake of the Abraham Accords.
“If you’d have told me back then that I would be opening a kosher restaurant and changing my life to be here in Dubai,
I wouldn’t have believed you,” said Worcman, on his first visit to an Arab country. “I was wondering then what I was doing, so it’s a huge transformation. Even now, it feels like a dream.”
For Kadosh, the change has been equally as surreal. From his home in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, the move would have seemed absurd just a few months ago, and even now his friends and family find it hard to comprehend his living in the once hostile nation.
The Orthodox Jew visited Dubai in December with his family and, like Worcman, felt there was a lack of high-quality, affordable kosher food. Some small catering operations now run in the city, and there is a kosher restaurant in the Armani Hotel, but it remains overpriced and low standard.
So with a combination of luck and Israeli chutzpah, the two have accomplished what dozens had been trying to do before they even arrived.
“When we went to the Chabad house and told them we needed them to supervise the restaurant because we were opening an Israeli restaurant, they said we were maybe the 100th person or more to come and tell them that,” smiled Kadosh.
The difference was that they were the first to find local partners to help get them started, and were ready to launch. It has still taken some special friendships to get around the procedures, which are in the process of changing in the wake of the normalization agreement announced on August 13. Banks are yet to set up, and visas for Israelis still to be processed, but as is the Israeli way, the two young men have found solutions.
The two Israelis see the restaurant as a lighthouse, a beacon of hope to bring people together. The chef, who is Pakistani, prays on Friday before returning to cook Shabbat dinners. One of
their most supportive friends is a Palestinian, and now that they have Emirati business partners, the hope is to have more Arabs working with them, too.
Worcman and Kadosh both wear their kippot openly in the streets, and so far have had nothing but warm welcomes from all those who discover they are Israeli, including a
Pakistani Uber driver who could recite Torah. It is a long way from the fear they would have felt in an Arab country 10 or 15 years ago, they say.
“People in the beginning were looking at us with curiosity,” said Kadosh, “but we never felt any sense of fear. In fact, we were made to feel very welcome.”
It has not been easy to source the kosher ingredients they need, unlike in cities such as New York, where the items are immediately available, but slowly things are changing. Certified under the Emirates Agency for Kosher Certification, the restaurant already boasts a wide menu, including shakshouka, baked salmon, hummus with eggs, and Israeli favorites such as lemon and mint juice.
Friends back home – just coming out of what has been an oppressive year of lockdowns – are cheering them on.
“Friends in Israel see this and they’re amazed, because most of them just left the army and are doing basic jobs and earning some money, planning what to study and what to do,” said Kadosh. “Suddenly they see their friend who was studying with them in the same class opening the first Israeli place in Dubai and hosting some very important people, making history. They are very impressed and supportive.”
There is a sense of responsibility on the mature young men’s shoulders, aware that they are ambassadors for a misunderstood people who for decades have been badly portrayed around the region and wider world. Moreover, they have faced several media reports of Israelis behaving badly in the city since travel opened in November.
“Most of the mess going on around the world between people is miscommunication, and nowadays, when we can actually meet with these people, we can start breaking down these barriers,” said Worcman.
The beauty of Dubai, with its almost 200 nationalities working and living together, is that these bridges can be built dayto-day.
“It’s our dream to meet with Iranians, Iraqis and as many people from this region as we can, and show them that all we want is peace,” said Kadosh.