Coronavirus, Palestinians and Israel - by Richard Kemp

Some Palestinian Arab leaders today seem to prefer that their own people succumb to disease rather than cooperate with Israel. While Palestinians and Israelis on the ground pull together against Coronavirus.... articles in official Palestinian Authority publications assert that Israel is deliberately spreading the infection and trying to contaminate Palestinian prisoners, using Coronavirus as a biological weapon. Of course, Israel-haters in both mainstream and social media are only too eager to amplify such defamatory and divisive outbursts.

Richard Kemp..
Gatestone Institute..
06 May '20..

Coronavirus has turned the world upside down. One Through the Looking Glass moment was the UN's praise for Israel over "unprecedented cooperation on efforts aimed at containing the epidemic". Those of us who follow the Middle East know that any judgement on Israel apart from outright condemnation is unprecedented for the UN.

What is not unprecedented is cooperation between Arabs and Israelis such as we see today. One hundred years ago, a Jewish microbiologist, Dr Israel Kligler, led the fight to eradicate malaria from this land. For centuries, the territory had been ravaged by the mosquito, decimating the people that tried to live there, leaving it barren and sparsely populated. Shortly before Kligler's war on malaria, British General Edmund Allenby, speaking of his 1917-18 fight against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine, had said: "I am campaigning against mosquitoes". His battle plans against the Turks were shaped above all by the need to overcome the murderous effects of malaria on his own forces.

Like Coronavirus, malaria did not differentiate between Jews and Arabs, and both communities learnt the need to work together against a disease that had for so long caused devastation to both their peoples. Despite violent efforts by Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to prevent his people from cooperating with the hated Jews, Kligler's endeavours enabled the land to be cultivated, populated and developed, and eventually to the total elimination of the disease in the area.

Like al-Husseini, some Palestinian Arab leaders today seem to prefer that their own people succumb to disease rather than cooperate with Israel. While Palestinians and Israelis on the ground pull together against Coronavirus, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh says: "Some soldiers are trying to spread the virus through the door handles of cars. It is a case of racism and hatred by people who hope for the death of the other." More Alice in Wonderland fantasy.

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Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.

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