Lebanon’s Discrimination Against Palestinians

On Jan. 28th 2021 news was revealed that Lebanese citizens began an online petition stating that all Lebanese citizens should be vaccinated before any foreigner living within their borders.  The reality is that this is a discriminatory petition as there are hundreds of thousands of people living in Lebanon that are identified as “Palestinian Refugees” that are not considered to be Lebanese citizens.  The practice of denying Palestinians in Lebanon access to basic medical care has been a long-standing practice in Lebanon.  In 2011, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy by the name of Mohammed Nabil Taha died at the entrance to a Lebanese hospital after being refused admittance because his parents could not afford to pay for his $1500 medical treatment.  In Lebanon, “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in squalid refugee camps and are victims of an apartheid system that denies then access to work, education, & medical care.”


Israel on the other hand, engages in no such practice.  Every year hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza are permitted to come into Israel to receive medical treatment.  Even terrorists are treated in Israeli medical institutions.  Nonie Darwish, a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza once testified how her father, Colonel Mustafa Hafez, who led terrorist attacks against Israel on behalf of the Egyptian dictator Abdel Nasser during the 1950’s.  Though he lost his life while fighting the Israelis, the Israeli government still showed compassion toward his family.  In 1994, Colonel Hafez’s son suffered a stroke in Gaza.  He was immediately flown to the Hadassah Hospital where Israeli doctors saved his life.  Israel continues to provide medical treatment to Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza despite the fact that Hamas has at times attempted to use sick and injured Palestinians leaving for Israeli medical treatment to carry out suicide bombings.  

Israel has likewise not ignored the Palestinians during the COVID-19 Crisis.  At this current time, Israel has vaccinated more Palestinians than any Arab country.  This is despite the fact that the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement stipulated that the Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza are responsible for health treatment of the populace.  This means that Israel is not responsible for overseeing the vaccination of the populace of Gaza and the West Bank.  The reason why Israel hasn’t vaccinated more of the people in these territories is that the Palestinian leaders have refused to accept vaccinations from Israel and instead chose to obtain them from other sources.  Despite the fact that the Palestinian Leaders are unwilling to work with the Israelis, the Israeli government has vaccinated thousands of Palestinian Arabs living in East Jerusalem who have Resident Status in Israel and also helped facilitate the delivery of thousands of vaccines to the Palestinian leaders from other areas of the world.  In terms of providing medical treatment to the Palestinian populace, Israel has done far more to accommodate the Palestinian than Lebanon, yet there is no International outrage over this.  These facts need to be brought to light and the International Community needs to take action to push both Palestinian Leaders and the Leaders of neighboring nations like Lebanon to start taking action to ensure that the Palestinians living under their jurisdiction have access to proper medical care, especially during this world-wide pandemic. 

Sourcew

Darwish, Nonie.  Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.  New York: Penguin Group, 2006.
 
Toameh, Khaled Abu.  “Where’s the International Outcry Against Arab Apartheid?”  The Jerusalem Post.  March 17, 2011.  Accessed from https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/wheres-the-international-outcry-against-arab-apartheid.
 
Clarfield, A. Mark & Ido D. Dechtman.  “Access to Medical Care for Palestinians in Israel: Delays in a Difficult Historical Context.”  American Public Health Association.  108 (1): 15-16.  Accessed from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5719710/
 
Tawil, Bassam.  “Arab Medical Apartheid: Where is the Outrage.”  Gatestone Intuition.  Jan. 28, 2021.  Accessed from https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16989/arab-medical-apartheid.

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