State steps up battle amid corona uptick
Travelers from hot spots may be fined • Health Ministry recommends vaccinating teens
Almost all coronavirus outbreaks in schools were caused by the lack of compliance with quarantine regulations by individuals returning from abroad, and Israelis traveling to countries under a travel ban will start to be fined, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Monday.
Israel on Monday registered the highest number of daily cases since April, prompting the government to take measures to counter the morbidity.
“Our first mission at the Health Ministry is to protect people’s health, but also our daily life, free and open, as much as possible,” Horowitz said in one of his first public statements addressing the situation.
Since most of the outbreaks were caused by the lack of compliance with quarantine requirements by individuals returning from abroad, the government focused on stepping up testing capabilities at Ben-Gurion Airport and enforcement of travel regulations during a meeting on the topic on Sunday night.
Individual tourists left confused amid country’s reopening,
On Monday night, the ministry issued a recommendation to vaccinate 12- to 15-year-olds. Previously, they were able to do so if they chose, but there was no active recommendation.
“Regarding what is happening at Ben-Gurion Airport, I heard that in the previous government there were difficulties in
cooperation between the relevant ministries, but not anymore,” Horowitz said.
The travel ban on countries considered to be high risk
approved by the previous government did not come with any enforcement measures, he said,
adding that in the next few days fines will be given to those who fly there.
The list currently includes Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Israelis who wish to visit them need to obtain permission from a special governmental committee.
“We, the government, will take strict measures to monitor Ben-Gurion Airport, manage the outbreaks and maintain public health,” Horowitz said. “But at the same time, and I also turn to the media here, there is no need to create unnecessary panic.”
Daily cases are at the highest in almost two months, but for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, Israel has registered no coronavirus deaths for a week.
Some 48 people tested positive for the virus on Sunday, and another 88 were identified on Monday as of 5:30 p.m. The last time such a number of new daily cases was registered was at the end of April. However, the figure remains extremely low compared with the thousands of people who were infected every day during the worst periods of morbidity.
The majority of new cases in the country are infected with the Delta variant, also known as Indian variant, which experts believe is some 60% more contagious than the British variant previously dominant in Israel, the N12 news site reported.
In addition, about one-third of new virus carriers were vaccinated. However, the Pfizer vaccine is said to be highly effective against the variant, especially in preventing serious forms of the diseases. Most new cases present no or mild symptoms, according to health authorities.
Six people have succumbed to the virus since the beginning of June. In the first three weeks of May, there were 24 deaths. At the peak of the pandemic in January, dozens of deaths were recorded every day.
The number of serious patients has also remained relatively stable. As of Monday morning, there were 24 people in serious condition; 21 were registered on Saturday. A month earlier, more than 50 patients were in serious condition, and in January, the number was more than 1,200 for several days.
Some 164 students and 16 teachers currently have the virus, or about half of the active cases in Israel. In addition, about 3,500 students and 100 teachers are in isolation.
As the result of an outbreak at a school in Binyamina, where at least 80 students and staff tested positive, the town was classed as yellow on Monday, according to the “traffic light” classification system. It marked the first time in several weeks that a municipality has shifted from green.
The traffic-light model was conceived by health authorities earlier in the year to decide how to allocate resources around the country, such as testing stations, and to determine how schools would function. A yellow designation currently does not carry practical consequences.
Following the outbreaks in schools, Defense Minister Benny Gantz decided to postpone the closure of the Ela unit, which has been in charge of epidemiological research and investigation efforts related to the coronavirus.
“The IDF and Home Front Command have evolved unprecedented capabilities in epidemiological tracing, capabilities that should be transferred to the Health Ministry at the end of the month,” Gantz said Monday during a meeting of his Blue and White faction. “However, I have instructed [the defense establishment] to prepare for the possibility that we will need to postpone passing on the torch.”
Also on Monday, the Health Ministry said Israelis can access a new coronavirus certificate for both vaccinated and recovered people that will be valid until December 31. •
rejected them.
Critics slammed the PA for its refusal to make swift use of the vaccines, charging that it should at least try to jab the 60,000 people a day it claims it has the ability to process.
There is some typical arrogance built into this equation. Were Israel on the receiving end of a batch of soon-to-expire vaccines being dumped on it, cogent questions would be raised whether they should be accepted. The vaccination program requires two doses. A chaotic rollout of soon-to-expire vaccines is not ideal.
SO WHY did Israel wait until June to offer a million vaccines it had sitting in storage? If they weren’t needed in June, it stands to reason they weren’t needed in May or in April. But back then, Netanyahu’s officials were still biding their time and concerned about not forming a government. Like other things, such as the second flag march last week, the vaccination deal was pushed aside.
The deal with Ramallah appears cynical, with Israel set to receive doses from Pfizer in September and October in lieu of the ones it wanted to now dump on Ramallah. For the Netanyahu system of governance, everything appears to have come down to short-term solutions and cynical choices.
Another example of short-term quick-fix governance that has underpinned Netanyahu’s system was the embarrassing series of plans and cancellations for Netanyahu to go to Abu Dhabi. First planned and canceled in late 2020 and early January 2021 after the Abraham Accords, another trip was canceled on February 4 because Netanyahu’s government had closed Ben-Gurion Airport due to a lockdown.
Then on March 11, yet another trip was canceled at the last minute because Jordan didn’t want the Israeli prime minister transiting through its territory. The bizarre trip had necessitated a plane change in Amman and a two-hour wait on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi. It was to take place just before the election, and UAE officials were shocked that their country was being used as a political prop.
The trips to the UAE were organized as no more than an afterthought, without basic planning – not like a visit by an important head of state in the wake of a historic peace agreement. When the UAE or other monarchies in the Gulf host other leaders, or when their leaders go abroad, there are red carpets and honor guards and all the trappings one would expect for a state visit.
But for Israel’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were simply an election prop in spite of the lip service that was paid to their importance. A two-hour visit and a handshake on the tarmac, followed by a swift return home for the elections, was the plan. ministries.
Chaos at ministries continued through May 2021. Some were either held by Netanyahu or juggled like fruit for others. In early May 2021, the communications ministerial appointment was finally made, along with a science and technology minister, social equality minister and ministers of higher education and water resources.
Reports appearing in foreign media mocked Netanyahu for holding five ministerial positions, wondering why he had also not created a “minister of magic.” The real joke appeared to be on the citizens of Israel, who had been deprived of a basic functioning government for years. A foreign minister or a defense minister is a basic aspect of government, but having one man do everything is not.
In fact, when it comes to governance, Israel’s authoritarian turn under Netanyahu sometimes appeared to exceed even the way things are done in places like Turkey and Russia; at least there, they tend to have ministers, even if the minister is serving at the pleasure of the leader.
THE NEED for properly functioning ministries and a large diplomatic corps is vital for a country like Israel that is constantly under scrutiny and criticism. But for years, the ability to respond through those channels was weakened.
While Iran, Turkey and other adversaries have large diplomatic corps who can hold major meetings abroad to lobby and enlist support for their cause, Israel increasingly became a one-person foreign diplomatic operation. The results were embarrassment, confusion and short-term fixes for everything.
Also not surprisingly, crucial issues that are watched closely from abroad – whether the legal dispute in Sheikh Jarrah, Bedouin land struggles, Gaza, relations with Jordan, the Western Wall or other deals – were left to fester.
The festering, open wound of Mount Meron is one such example. On April 30, inadequate crowd control led to a huge crush, and 45 people were killed in one of Israel’s worst tragedies. But the Netanyahu administration’s approach showed a complete lack of urgency in launching an inquiry. It appears that haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties forbade any investigation, and in heeding their edicts, the government did nothing. This most painful event was to be swept under the carpet.
Even most authoritarian regimes investigate disasters when many people die. But in Israel, there was to be no investigation. Forty-five dead, and nobody need be made accountable because blame and following the money might reveal unfathomable corruption in some religious quarters and how corners were cut.
An investigation would reveal what everyone knew had happened during the pandemic, where whole swaths of the country were seemingly exempt from obeying regulations, as happened when schools were kept open for certain communities while most others were shut tight.
ISRAEL DURING over a decade of Netanyahu rule cemented the state-within-a-state doctrine, where pandering to haredi parties – and no questions asked in exchange for their support – was the way to go. That is also why it took many years to extradite one woman to Australia and why there was a push for immunity laws in the Knesset to protect politicians from indictment.
Then in February, there was the mystery oil spill when many beaches were polluted in what was said to be one of Israel’s worst environmental disasters. Weeks later, it was gone from the news. No investigation. No information. A random event. It just happened, and nothing would be learned from it to try to avoid a recurrence.
The systematic erosion of accountability in Israel, the lack of a budget, personal diplomacy replacing a diplomatic corps, politicized diplomacy, religious blackmail of government institutions and investigations, the concentration of power, erosion of trust, short-term fixes for everything – and managing various conflicts but never seeking an end to them – became endemic to Israel’s government.
Ending the impunity and consequences will take time. •