The decision of the Bennett-Lapid-Horowitz government to allow unvaccinated students to attend school, even if they have come into contact with a verified Covid patient, has deepened the existing chaos, not only in the education system but among the general public. Bennett’s reasoning is simple: Omicron is ‘almost’ behind us. While it is currently insanely contagious, mathematical models show that within a week it will start to wane, because there will be no one left to infect. On the contrary, because Omicron is known to be a mild disease, the more students catch it and infect each other and their parents, the faster we will reach the peak of the curve, which will then start going down. True, there are currently about 50 patients dying every day! Yet this number can be “accepted,” if we take seriously what Ayelet Shaked, the Interior Minister and Bennett’s partner, said in August 2021.

The Bennett government seems to have given up. The chaos stems from the fact that the immunization strategy has failed, Omicron has defeated the Green Pass, and the recommendation for a fourth jab was made half-heartedly and unconvincingly. This feeling was expressed by American journalist Bari Weiss. In an interview with comedian and TV presenter Bill Maher on January 22, she caused a stir by saying “I’m done with Covid.” She described how she meticulously followed instructions of the various health authorities, and believed the US administration’s claim that ‘You get the vaccine and you get back to normal.’ “We haven’t gotten back to normal. And it’s ridiculous at this point … You will realize you can show your vaccine passport at a restaurant and still be asymptomatic and be carrying Omicron. And you will realize most importantly that this is going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.”

Her remarks provoked much anger in the American medical establishment. How dare she say “I’m done with Covid” when Omicron has not yet finished with us. More than 600,000 American citizens test positive each day for Covid, and more than 2,000 die daily. Yet the administration continues to cling to the claim that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” thus expressing its complete detachment from public feelings.  As in Israel, the public in the United States understands that the vaccine does not prevent infection, and the talk of it saving from death does not comfort anyone. People are infected and have no way to avoid it, because in Israel and the Western world, governments understand that closure is unpopular due to the economic damage it brings, and that schools cannot be closed as children and parents are “going crazy” at home. After two years of pandemic, all that remains is to pray that Omicron heralds the end, because we are frustrated and exhausted, and don’t possess the strength to think of the next variant.

It’s unfortunate that there are not enough voices saying what is so obvious to any beginning epidemiologist – to avoid the next variant one has to vaccinate the world, period. The great failure of the Biden administration and of all Western governments, including Israel, is their disregard for the world’s poor and the strategic adoption of “everyone for himself.” This concept is very suitable for Israel, which has volunteered to be a laboratory for testing vaccines. In fact, the vaccine has become a much more political than epidemiological card, proximity to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has become a political asset, and the Clalit Health Fund has become Pfizer’s subcontractor. Then came the South African Omicron, which is a wake-up call signaling that it’s impossible to continue like this. An immediate change must be made.

A large group of congress members and Democratic senators wrote a personal letter to President Biden, urging him to take immediate action to vaccinate the world. “The world is at a critical crossroads in the fight against the pandemic,” they write, demanding that Biden allocate another $17 billion for this purpose. “We cannot afford to waste another moment and risk the appearance of a more dangerous variant …. the time to end the pandemic is now.” These things are clear, it is not about living ‘with’, ‘near’ or ‘within’ Covid, but about life without it. The ‘non-dangerous’ Omicron teaches us that it is impossible to get used to a pandemic. As long as it exists, it changes its face and creates chaos, despair and helplessness. The absurdity is that humanity possesses the tools to end the global pandemic, and the demand of American senators and many in the scientific community is not unfounded at all. Failure is not in science but in politics! Vaccines have proven effective against the disease, but their unequal distribution has completely neutralized their effect.

The data do not lie. According to the World Health Organization, 10 billion vaccine doses were distributed worldwide, but were concentrated in rich countries. The number of vaccine doses given in high-income countries is 14 times higher per capita compared to low-income countries. About 84% of the population in the African Union have not yet received a single dose of vaccine, while 40% of Americans have received the booster. Where have the public health experts gone? For years they learned the fundamentals of the profession, they understand well that the global world is one epidemiological unit, they knew long ago that a “big thing” is on the way, they learned how to prepare for it, and in the moment of truth they failed. They were blown away by the illusions that Pfizer and Moderna sold us – ‘Forget the world, take care of yourself first, pay us good money for every vaccine and you will not be sorry.’ This is how Albert Bourla laughs all the way to the bank, while Omicron laughs at us all.

From the beginning I did not have much hope in Israel’s “government of change.” It has already given up and is preparing to recommend the fifth booster, while from booster to booster their effectiveness declines, and we hold a world record for the number of infected per million people. Salvation will not come from China either. The Chinese Communist Party is first and foremost interested in its survival, and the “zero Covid” policy it pursues violates the most basic civil rights. The closures, surveillance, house incarceration and concealment of information demonstrate the regime’s nature. The Russians are also collapsing under Covid, people do not believe the government and refuse to get vaccinated with Sputnik. Putin’s way of dealing with the pandemic is to mobilize tanks on the Ukrainian border and sell to the people the fantasy of returning to the glory days of the USSR. Germany and Britain do not want to take responsibility for vaccinating the world because they care about the profits of their drug companies. The United States may thus have remained the only hope. And to be precise, this is half of America, not its entirety. This is the sane democratic half facing the Republican half. The latter not only supports Trump and denies Covid, but we are also learning about its support for Putin, and its questioning of why the US should come out in defense of Ukraine.

Biden’s failure to deal with the pandemic is evident in him and his public status, as his standing in the polls is among the lowest relative to previous presidents in their first year. His attempts to pass his big social plans, the budgets to deal with climate change and the struggle for the right to vote for blacks, are deeply stuck due to his party’s internal conflict. The way to get rid of this blockage is to act immediately and vaccinate the world to bring an end to the pandemic.  

If the US administration does not wake up and pursue a policy of “world vaccination,” the result will be terrible. Not only will the Covid pandemic return to strike with all its might, but it will be followed by an equally dangerous pandemic: the return of Trumpism. It is possible that Bennett, Shaked, Lapid and also Bibi will welcome this, and will continue to shout ‘Iran, Iran Iran’ to silence the pains of Covid, but humanity will pay an unbearably heavy price. Wake up, Biden! For the sake of your citizens and all of us.

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We have not yet had time to enjoy the pleasures of the third jab, and are already informed that we must roll up our sleeves yet again for the fourth one. Our eyebrow can no longer be raised, it is stretched to the limit, as are our nerves. A fourth dose within one year? What kind of vaccine is this? Is this the amazing scientific invention that was supposed to save humanity from this terrible pandemic?

When the vaccine was first introduced, we were told that two doses would provide us with optimal protection against infection and disease. The Americans coined the term “fully vaccinated,” and President Biden clearly stated that if 70% of the population were vaccinated, we would reach herd immunity and thus eradicate the pandemic. In the US, Democrats were quick to get vaccinated while the Republicans, supporters of Donald Trump, did the opposite, and as a result the vaccination campaign there is faltering. Israel has declared that all those who have been vaccinated twice are actually unvaccinated, and demands a third dose as a condition for receiving a green pass.

The global expert, Dr. Fauci, who has already survived the COVID-19-denying Trump administration and continues to serve as chief medical adviser to the Biden administration, twisted and turned, explaining that the third dose is probably a “full dose”. Attention should be paid to the term “probably”, which corresponds to “allegedly” in the mouths of legal reporters. In short, nothing is certain, talk is supposedly scientific, but in the end everything remains a matter of speculation. The Americans are loyal to their determination that one who has received two doses is considered “fully vaccinated”, and they only recommend a “booster” without mandating it.

And while they are still explaining the effectiveness of the third dose, Israel comes out with bad news: the booster too is insufficient, and a fourth dose is required to cope with Omicron. This is hits below the belt. While the Americans are fighting Omicron with two doses, Israel has already run towards the fourth. The lights of science, the saints of medicine, stand naked, embarrassed, and without credibility in the face of the Omicron wave.

And what is happening in Israel? As noted, it rushes to the fourth dose after roundly failing with the third. From the country with the highest immunization rate after the first two doses, it has become one of the least vaccinated countries in the West. Why? Because from dose to dose the public loses faith in the vaccine and in the conflicted medical establishment, with a large proportion of doctors claiming the recommendation for a fourth vaccine is not scientifically based. This time, it seems, the medical establishment prefers the popular insight that “what does not kill you makes you stronger” over scientific insight, which is, it turns out, unclear.

In fact, the vaccine strategy is collapsing. As the West digs in and vaccinates itself, the variants become increasingly contagious and durable. To be precise, the problem is not with the vaccine itself, but with the egocentric way in which it is utilized. The basic principle in public health states that “the world is one epidemiological unit, and as long as the world is not vaccinated no one is immune.” Omicron is the convincing proof that the vaccination strategy has collapsed. Wealthy countries stocked up on vaccines and paid exorbitant prices to Pfizer, whose focus is not on humanity but on its shareholders. 80% of all vaccines were purchased by rich countries and only 5% reached poor ones, fertile ground for the development of new variants that penetrate all immune defenses.

Why does the medical establishment continue to market vaccines as a solution to a pandemic, and not demand that resources be directed in a balanced way to the poor and unvaccinated populations, who otherwise become a breeding ground for new and resistant variants? In the midst of the tsunami of text that pervades the Israeli and global media, why is this simple truth not stated? How can a clear and unequivocal voice not rise up to urge statesmen to vaccinate the world as the most effective – and perhaps the only – way to stop the virus that has resulted in millions of casualties in two years? The answer is painful and simple: the medical establishment is held captive by Big Pharma. Without them there are no studies, no international conferences, and most importantly, no salaries and countless benefits.

A few months ago, more than 50 Israeli doctors, including leading public health experts, signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Bennett and Health Minister Horowitz. Doctors urged the government to work for a temporary waiver of intellectual property (patent) rights of COVID-19 vaccines. This is to enable those countries that can do so to mass-produce the vaccine, making it accessible to the whole world and blocking the development of new variants. The letter did not receive any attention from the recipients or the media.

It is very disappointing that the same doctors themselves, who signed the letter on the understanding that this is the correct and effective way to prevent the spread of variants, appear repeatedly in the media, praising the various boosters while being careful not to mention their true position on intellectual property. As time goes on, the efficiency of the boosters disappoints, and the variants continue to evolve. The medical establishment thus loses credibility.

The institution entrusted with intellectual property agreements is the World Trade Organization (WTO), in which fruitless discussions have been held for a year about the demand for Pfizer and Moderna to temporarily waive intellectual property relating to vaccines. Global pharmaceutical powers such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States and South Korea oppose India and South Africa’s initiative to allow the production and distribution of vaccines to any country possessing the capacity to do so. The economic interests of pharmaceutical companies outweigh the interest of the world in eradicating the pandemic.

The poor world continues to get sick and remains completely exposed to the virus, but the wealthy, satiated, selfish West will also pay the price in the end. From India came the Delta variant, from South Africa Omicron, and these are penetrating every border and spreading across London, Paris and New York, returning us to the pandemic’s early days. The billions of doses already given do not prevent the closures, the collapse of health systems and the death toll that has already crossed 800,000 in the US alone. The pandemic is costing not only lives, but also has a weighty political price: the chaos created by supply chain disruptions, millions of workers forced into unemployment, the rise in prices that accompanies the economic upheaval, spiking inflation – are leading to a loss of trust in heads of state like Boris Johnson and Joe Biden.

And what about Israel? The “government of change” is facing a test it did not expect. The airport closure is reminiscent of the Dutch boy using his finger to plug the hole in the dike that is about to erupt, while Omicron has long been spreading in Israel. Instead of being the first to adopt the fourth dose, the Israeli government must use all its scientific weight to persuade the world to agree on a temporary waiver of the vaccine patents, to protect the Israeli population and contribute to surviving the pandemic worldwide. It’s time to end the addiction to Pfizer and its chairman Albert Bourla, who continues to inflate his profits at the expense of Israeli society and with encouragement of Israel’s medical and political establishments. The medical community in Israel must look in the mirror and tell itself the truth: We have failed, we have not told the whole truth, we have ignored the weak of the world, and Omicron is their bitter revenge.

The post The scandal of the vaccine patents first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

To help celebrate Israel’s 73rd Independence Day this past April, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was invited to light a torch on behalf of Diaspora Jewry. Although he was not present at the ceremony, he sent a recorded greeting saying, “We have shown that there is a path back to normal, and that definitely is something the entire world can celebrate.” In reality we did not return to normal. And while the whole world is watching in panic as the epidemic spreads, among the only ones who can celebrate is none other than Bourla himself, having sold his shares in Pfizer for $5.6 million. His salary also increased by a considerable percentage, amounting to $21 million last March. Netanyahu, for whom Bourla counts as a personal friend, poured all his love for him into vaccines as a strategy to get clear of COVID-19, transforming Bourla into Israel’s darling. In fact, relations with Bourla have become more important than relations with the White House, and the strategic alliance between Pfizer and the State of Israel has become the central axis in the struggle against the pandemic.

However, less than a month after Independence Day, it became clear that Pfizer’s vaccine did not provide a complete solution. Its effectiveness wanes within half a year, and a third dose is now required, whose date of waning is unknown.

Meanwhile, the health systems in Israel and the United States are in disarray. The debates between scientists are growing, and the rift between the political system and the scientific community is widening. This is because the vaccine strategy as a sole solution has collapsed, and the evidence is that Israel, the most vaccinated country in the world, was also the country where the number of verified cases in August and September was amongst the highest. In addition, neither Israel nor the United States have succeeded in convincing entire publics to get vaccinated. This reality does not deter Joe Biden and Naftali Bennett.

When the Biden administration announced provision of booster shots to all citizens of the US even before the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this, it commenced a direct confrontation with this agency. Interestingly, Dr. Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor, relied on the Israeli experience to try and persuade the FDA of the booster’s necessity. He gained, however, only half his wish. The FDA restricted the booster to people 65 and older and to those with compromised immune systems. Then, however, the agency responsible for public health, the Center for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), expanded booster eligibility to include most public servants. The debate between Biden and the FDA has damaged not only the credibility of the U.S. administration, but that of the entire health care system, whose reputation was already damaged because of its failure to treat the pandemic, as evidenced by the nearly 700,000 who have died.

In Israel, too, a crisis broke out between the health care and political systems, culminating in Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s rather delusional attack on the Israeli health care system in his speech to the UN General Assembly. It was as if he had no other platform from which to blame the health care professionals for “not seeing the full picture.” Bennett attacked the experts who had warned that relying on vaccines without other means, such as the prevention of big gatherings, would not halt the pandemic. This crisis stems from the simple fact that the vaccination strategy does not work if restricted to the wealthy nations alone. Not only does the situation cast a heavy shadow on the integrity of politicians, it also raises doubts about the objectivity of the experts, scientists and doctors in charge of public health.

The crisis of trust was created due to the unreliability of those who initially claimed that two vaccine shots had finally saved us from COVID-19, and after being proven wrong they moved on to a new theory, that one should “live alongside the coronavirus” using the booster. In the next wave they will be inventing a new theory and a fourth booster, and so forth. The public is tired of living alongside the coronavirus, and it lives as if there is no virus at all. The results were evident in hospitals and intensive care units, where staff were pushed to the limit, although as of now (the beginning of October) numbers are receding.

What doctors and researchers do not say out loud is the simple epidemiological fact: There is no national solution for the coronavirus! Either the whole world will be vaccinated or the virus and all of its mutations will continue to plague us. The great failure of the experts is probably due to cowardice. “The coronavirus is here to stay” they say, but do not explain why, when the answer is simple and painful: only 1.5% of the citizens of poor countries have been vaccinated, while rich countries have accumulated 85% of all vaccines. This gap is the epidemiological omission that allows the virus to develop mutations and strains like Delta.

We talked about cowardice. So here’s the sad reality: the medical community around the world has in fact become a hostage of Big Pharma companies. These companies are responsible for everything that moves in the world of medicine, from research and drug development to scientific conferences. Big Pharma dictates what is permitted and forbidden in the field of science and medicine, and today humanity is paying the price. The situation is so extreme that 45% of the FDA budget is covered by Big Pharma companies themselves. The same regulatory body, the enlightened ones responsible for medicines and food, without whose approval no medicine goes on the market, depends on the application fees that those companies pay when they submit drugs for approval. Thus the FDA depends, to an unhealthy degree, on money from the companies it supervises. Furthermore, it is clear to all that Pfizer has no interest in selling its vaccines to poor countries, when it can continue to peddle its wares at the highest possible price.

In a rare historical situation of global pandemic that fatally harms world economies, causes political and social shocks, paralyzes the education system, deepens social rifts and causes the deaths of millions around the world, the solution is to vaccinate the world as quickly as possible to reach a 70% vaccination level. The “national” immunization strategy has failed, and there is no escape from switching to a “global” immunization strategy to put an end to the pandemic. The absurdity is that as the coronavirus continues to spread, Pfizer’s profits swell. Anyone with eyes in his head understands that the way to put an end to this absurdity is to temporarily expropriate from Pfizer the intellectual property rights over this vaccine, and allow drug factories around the world to produce it in bulk and cheaply.

The way to temporarily abolish intellectual property rights over the vaccine is through the World Trade Organization, which is responsible for ensuring compliance with the intellectual property rights agreement signed by its member states. Although President Biden agreed to support a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights in May this year and thus gave great hope to the world, his voice has since been silenced, he has adopted the booster strategy, and health anarchy is deepening. Both Biden and Dr. Fauci have embraced Dr. Sharon Elrai-Price, the head of public health services in Israel. She was honored to appear before the FDA to promote the booster shot, and along the way the interests of Pfizer.

Israel and its public health system have become a model for two opposites: on the one hand a model for the effectiveness of a public health system and for a booster shot that undoubtedly prevents serious illness, and on the other a model for contagion, mutation, and deaths despite high vaccine levels. Had Dr. Elrai-Price and her friends been faithful to the scientific truth and free from external considerations, they would have used the Israeli experience to tell the whole world: “Beware of relying on the vaccine alone, the booster is not the ultimate solution, you cannot live alongside the coronavirus, and the only way to eradicate the pandemic is by vaccinating the entire world.”

When it was proven that the experiment was successful but the patient died, instead of becoming a Pfizer laboratory the Israeli government and Israeli health system should take a bold step: Say thank you and good-bye to Albert Bourla, while using their prestige to embark on a global outreach campaign. They should act in all scientific forums and with Dr. Fauci and the Biden administration, to persuade them to work within the World Trade Organization for temporary waiver of intellectual property rights over coronavirus vaccines. This is for the health of the citizens of Israel, the citizens of the United States and citizens of the world. Israel, which has become the human laboratory that enriched Pfizer, can today use its vast experience to prove to the world that the national vaccine can be effective only if administered equally in all nations. The sanctity of private property and profit must not be allowed to prevail over the sanctity of human life.

The post If I am not for Pfizer, who will be for me? first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

“Living alongside the coronavirus” is the new mantra of the Bennett-Lapid “Government of Change,” based on the tenets of top epidemiologists. The coronavirus, we are told, “is here to stay.” In contrast to Netanyahu’s populist stance, which saw vaccination as the means to eradicate the pandemic, under Bennett and Lapid the vaccine is supposed to enable the public to live with the virus. In their opinion, the way to do this is to endlessly vaccinate yourself, that is, to go for the booster shot as a means of preventing lockdowns and lowering the infection rate, even if it does not completely flatten it.

Therefore, as of October 1, anyone who received two doses more than five months ago will be considered unvaccinated if they refuse to take a booster third shot. The “green pass” will be taken from them; they will therefore be excluded from public events and be ostracized.   

The United States lags behind Israel by a month, yet even there the American administration is calling for a third dose to be administered as early as September, coining the slogan “this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated.” The percentage of those refusing to be vaccinated in the U.S. is very high and it overlaps with the political rift tearing American society apart: the Democrats are getting vaccinated, while the Republicans are refusing.

While there is much truth in the administration’s declaration that the pandemic is of the unvaccinated, it is not the whole truth. The Biden administration refers to those 100 million American citizens who refuse vaccination, but there are the billions of people in poor countries who want to be vaccinated but cannot. That is why 4.5 million people in the world have already died from COVID-19 and have not been able to ‘live alongside it’. All of them are victims of a criminal health policy that puts the profits of the so-called “big pharma” drug companies above the needs of humanity.

“The end will only come when the whole world becomes ill or vaccinated. It will take a long time,'” says Israel’s number one expert in virology, Prof. Gili Regev from the Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital (Ynet 20/8/21).  Regev is expressing the cruel and absurd paradigm on which Israel’s epidemiological position is built, that is, “living alongside the coronavirus.” Regev is saying that until we reach herd immunity of 70% for all of humanity, which requires 11 billion vaccine doses, we will continue to live with the virus. We will fall ill, we will die, or recover, and we will continue to be vaccinated every few months.

The interesting question is, if epidemiological logic clearly indicates that the sole way to eradicate the coronavirus is to vaccinate the entire world, why does Professor Regev shy away from the question: what prevents the vaccine from reaching the whole world? Professor Regev knows the answer to this question, as does Dr. Fauci, the world’s number one expert in infectious diseases. They refrain from touching it because they too are captives of big pharma.

To vaccinate the whole world, one has to give up the patents registered in the names of Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, companies which earn billions from the pandemic. Prof. Regev, Dr. Fauci and in fact almost the entire medical establishment situated at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus, will not touch the sacred cow of the modern capitalist regime: intellectual property. In fact, the pandemic revealed that the sanctity of intellectual property transcends the sanctity of life itself. Intellectual property, or in simple language the ‘patent’, the abolition of which is key to eradication of the coronavirus, remains in the hands of pharma company shareholders, whose whole purpose is to put fat dividends into their overflowing pockets.

Almost all scientific research is funded by the big drug companies. Thus, they gain a monopoly not only on drug production but also on scientific research, which turns intellectual property into an untouchable topic not to be discussed or criticized. The absurdity is that research is therefore legitimate as long as it generates profits. Entire branches of medical science are neglected because they are not considered profitable. Ever since government in Israel withdrew from the public arena and privatized entire sectors of health, education and social welfare, capital has become the primary player determining the fate of human beings. Not only has this created social disparities that endanger the democratic regime, capital is today leading humanity to an unnecessary health disaster.

To understand the extent of the absurdity, let us look at the position paper published by The People’s Vaccine, which unites world-renowned personalities and organizations. This paper discusses Covax, which was established in a partnership between Bill Gates and the World Health Organization with the aim of vaccinating the impoverished world. Covax’s policy has collapsed. Gates’ insistence on preventing the abolition of patents, resulting in exorbitant vaccine prices, has resulted in a vaccination rate of only 1% in poor countries.

The position paper states that the production cost of one vaccine dose is about $1.18, but that the published prices demonstrate that countries have paid 4 to 24 times more. Since the priority in vaccine distribution goes to the highest bidder, 90% of all production goes to rich countries. The paper holds that Pfizer and Moderna charged $41 billion more than the estimated cost of production.

The Israeli Ministry of Health published a censored version of its agreement with Pfizer, intending to reassure its citizens that the confidential medical details of the vaccinated will not reach Pfizer. Only one figure does not appear and will not appear in the published agreement, and that is the amount the government paid for the Pfizer vaccines. Well, not only is intellectual property sacred, but so is the so-called “trade secret”. In other words, the price of the vaccine should not be publicly known, so that Pfizer can charge any price it pleases regardless of the production cost.

Israel, for its part, is doing everything to promote Pfizer. From a serological study at the Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital to comprehensive research on the vaccine’s effectiveness and side effects, conducted jointly by the Clalit HMO and Harvard University on about two million Israelis.  That is, in exchange for a continuous supply at a price of $30 per vaccine, compared to the $14-19 paid by the European Union, Israel does Pfizer’s public relations. We don’t need to be convinced that the vaccine is important and beneficial, we know that. At the same time, we understand that the third shot, which is unequally distributed between rich and poor, does not bring about the end of the pandemic. This unequal division is described by the Director General of the World Health Organization himself, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as “vaccine apartheid.”

The way in which Israel, the United States and the rest of the rich world are behaving is not only selfish and immoral, but epidemiologically inefficient. The abolition of intellectual property for this vaccine, for the sake of the rich and the poor, is the only way to end this pandemic. Furthermore, it can be done. By its total reliance on the third dose, without addressing the Covid 19 crisis in the poorer countries, the Israeli government is short-sighted. Those poor countries are the ones from which new mutations will come. The real breach is not Ben Gurion Airport, the gateway to new variants, it is the millions of unvaccinated people throughout the world who continue to get sick, enabling the virus to evolve. In failing to act on this elementary fact, the Bennett-Lapid government is driven by the same nationalist blindness that views the fate of Israelis as detached from the fate of humanity.

We say to our country and to every rich country: Instead of waiting for the enemy at home, go out to the world and eliminate the chances of further mutation. Most importantly, abolish the patents!

The post Abolish the patents on those vaccines! first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

I will make it clear from the beginning.  I was among the first to get vaccinated, I believed that the “Green Pass” would protect me from disease, and the “disappearance” of the coronavirus in Israel only strengthened my faith in science and scientists. All this until the Delta variant infiltrated via Ben Gurion Airport, and we are now asked to get a third booster dose. Former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who checked his own level of antibodies and found that they had dissipated, came out with the battle cry “Go get vaccinated for the third time.” I did not believe what I heard, thinking it yet another political prank by someone who wants to escape justice at all costs, until his words resonated in the Ministry of Health. The Ministry then decided to recommend a third dose, even though there is no scientific proof of its effectiveness, and without waiting for approval by the US Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Although I began to doubt the motives for this decision, I was not decisive because I generally believe in doctors and medicine. That is, until Professor Dror Mevorach of Hadassah Hospital, who seems credible and wise, tweeted on July 28: “Suppose we give a third vaccine dose. It will raise the level of antibodies, that’s obvious, and even though there is no information, it is probably quite safe. Okay. How long will the increase in antibodies last? Probably only a few months. So what’s the plan? A vaccination every 3-4 months for 6 million people, that is, $600 million a year for vaccines whose benefit (beyond two) has not been proven?”

Even among CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) officials there were many who doubted the urgency of giving the third dose, while others implied that Pfizer was promoting it for economic reasons. Pfizer’s profits do not interest me if the third dose can save my life and that of my relatives. However, while fiddling among the news channels, I heard one doctor say with gritted teeth a sentence that has since been engraved in my mind: “The World Health Organization opposes a third vaccine because it comes at the expense of the poor countries that have so far not vaccinated their citizens.” Here the moral consideration conflicts with the health consideration: Will I receive a third dose at the expense of another who has not yet been vaccinated at all? It looks like sheer piggishness.

Added to this is what seems to me to be a purely health consideration. As the professor said, “How long will the rise of antibodies last? Probably only a few months.” The conclusion is that until all of humanity is vaccinated, each of us will remain exposed to the appearance of new variants. Pfizer will continue to make profits, but the pandemic will not end. After checking, I realized that the percentage of those vaccinated in poor countries is only 1.5%, and according to the World Health Organization, 11 billion vaccines will be needed for humanity to reach a 70% level of immunization (enough perhaps to halt the pandemic). Through Covax, the World Health Organization is responsible for distributing vaccines to poor countries, and it is estimated that at the current rate of vaccination, the operation will not end until 2024. In other words, we expect another three whole years during which new variants will develop, each one more dangerous and contagious than the previous.

Why does it take so long to distribute vaccines to all of humanity? The answer is simple and shocking. Because we are captive to the big, patent-holding big pharma companies, which are accountable to their shareholders, and to them alone. These companies are willing to sell to the highest bidder, and rich countries are willing to pay any price to extricate themselves from the pandemic.  Thus, while in rich countries the level of immunization exceeds 50%, the poor countries are left alone. Tens of thousands of people die in them every day, and the virus continues to mutate new and dangerous variants.

Anyone who tries to dig a little deeper to understand this absurdity will soon come across the name of Bill Gates, founder of Covax. Gates has a decisive influence on the World Health Organization, being its largest private donor and second only to the U.S. government. From the beginning Gates understood the severity of the pandemic and began to mobilize governments and scientists. People like Anthony Fauci, the chief American epidemiologist, and prime ministers including Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, were recruited to Covax. One of Gates’ arguments was that the production of a large “purchasing group” of poor countries would create a volume of demand, thus making it possible to compete with the rich countries for vaccines. It sounds good, but there’s a catch. Gates yields to the refusal by large pharma companies to suspend the patents they own. These patents hold the Third World by the throat. They prevent small companies and governments from producing vaccines en masse, simply and cheaply—which could be done. Gates’ argument is that vaccines are not a profitable product, and if we cancel the patents, big pharma will have no motive to continue developing vaccines and we will be left without protection against future epidemics. This claim ignores the fact that vaccines do not reach those who cannot pay anyway. As a result, we shall all, rich and poor, pay a tremendous price in health, as the third vaccine dose already demonstrates.

Bill Gates’ idea relies on pure capitalist logic. The whole world is being forced to accept his dictates. Henceforth, those that deal with pandemics will not be states but unelected philanthropists like him. It should not be forgotten how they got to be rich.

The development and spread of the Delta variant, and the negligible percentage of vaccines in poor countries, prove that philanthropy cannot replace the state. Gates’ philosophy, resembling that of other good people like Netanyahu and Bennett, is that the private sector is more efficient, agile and innovative. But reality has proven that it is also dangerous. In the United States, the worship of neoliberalism and the free market, and the desire to eliminate state regulations, led in 2016 to the election of Trump, and four years later to the brink of democracy’ s destruction. Only after voters understood the evils of capital’s rule could American society shift to a saner course.

Ignoring the world’s poor, the rich countries want to continue providing their citizens with a standard of living and personal security that allow rulers to be re-elected. Yet the poor want to live too. Millions of migrants are knocking on the U.S.-Mexico border, while many thousands continue to try crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe. If they do not drown, they are rejected time after time but try again. They remind us that every human being wants a good and safe life. On the other hand, the border-crossing mutations also remind us that disease cannot be stopped at the doors of the wealthy. Relying on Bill Gates and his neo-liberal teachings will not help. Each country’s attempt to treat the pandemic on its own, together with the refusal to repeal patents on vaccines and drugs, perpetuate the misery for everyone, causing loss of livelihoods and death worldwide.

Even in the wealthy countries, state resources have been depleted by reducing taxes on the rich. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and the like have only increased their power and wealth, so much so that they, and not elected governments, today control management of the greatest health disaster humanity has known in a century. It is time to step up, shunt aside the exploiters who control our lives, and restore to ourselves—through democratic institutions—the management of a crisis that threatens all of us.

The lesson from the pandemic, as from the climate crisis, is clear: there are no national solutions. We are one climatic unit. Emissions in China affect weather in the United States. A mutation that appears in India affects the health of Israelis, Americans and everyone else. Both issues are urgent and pressing. Poverty is not just a problem for Africa and Latin America; it has become—patently—a problem for all.

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Since the last Central Committee meeting in February of this year, the political arena has undergone fundamental upheavals that we could not have anticipated. A global event like the coronavirus pandemic that has spread across the planet was surprising, leaving no place on earth without casualties. The pandemic illustrates the nature of globalization, which united the fate and future of humanity and the interrelationships between peoples, crossing national and ethnic boundaries. A health incident that began in the live animal market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 became a global health disaster within two months.

The coronavirus and the way each regime dealt with it revealed the nature of the various regimes and the shortcomings of the global neoliberal capitalist regime (which itself reached a dead end in 2008 following collapse of the American economy, which dragged the world to a historic low). The Chinese and American regimes stood out in the way they handled the crisis: the Chinese communist dictatorship hid the outbreak of the pandemic to protect its name, as the virus probably erupted due to a lack of government oversight over the wet market.  The American president also hid the dangerous nature of the pandemic from the American people, for fear of its impact on the New York Stock Exchange. The Chinese regime imposed severe measures and locked down 40 million citizens in the city of Wuhan for over two months, while Donald Trump has accused his Democratic opponents of inventing the pandemic, a hoax to damage the economy for electoral reasons.

The Chinese example of dealing with the pandemic has proven to be more effective. China managed to eradicate the pandemic with record speed through the draconian steps it took, steps possible for a dictatorial regime. The United States, on the other hand, which has been slow to prepare for the crisis,  and its president even denied and continues to deny the severity of the pandemic, has failed miserably in coping with it, and the coronavirus is spreading non-stop as of this writing. The death toll in the U.S. is approaching a quarter of a million, or a quarter of all COVID-19 related deaths worldwide, while the number of people infected now exceeds 8 million. American society has been deeply traumatized by Trump’s bizarre and reckless behavior on the one hand, and the health disaster on the other. The collapse of the economy as a result of the prolonged closure has affected the lives of millions of citizens. The US and China were the two powers that led the world economy in the last two decades. Yet the coronavirus revealed that humanity could not rely on China, despite its economic efficiency, due to its tyrannical regime, nor on the US. The latter collapsed because of its loose political regime, which on the one hand allowed an unstable and criminal personality like Trump to seize power, and on the other leads an economic system that sanctifies the extreme profit of the few. This method has been shamefully exposed in the face of a privatized health system that cannot cope with a huge-scale health disaster as befell the United States and the world.

The lesson we learn from the coronavirus is that restricting basic freedoms and human rights in exchange for economic well-being, as in China, is a fundamental problem, but also that when capital and monopolies take over the democratic regime, democracy is emptied of content, and political parties cease to serve the citizens and serve capital instead. Although before the pandemic China boasted of its impressive increase in gross national product, which reached 10% annually, and flooded markets with cheap goods that resulted in an increase in consumption and standard of living, its capitalist, non-transparent dictatorship extracted from humanity an extremely high health and economic cost. American capitalism, on the other hand, and the intensification of monopolies impoverished the American people, created abysmal social gaps and led to a loss of confidence in the democratic regime. This gave rise to populist and pro-fascist currents like Trump’s, which rose on a wave of partially justified criticism of the Democratic party, promising to “dry up the swamp” in Washington and clear it of corruption. In light of this, the American people need radical political and economic change simultaneously.

In recent years, the Da’am Party has championed the slogan “One State – Green economy,” which is gaining momentum in light of the current crisis. The slogan “one state” does not stem solely from the failure of the “two states” solution against the backdrop of the failed Oslo Accords. It comes from retrospection of the new global situation which pushed aside the national idea, abolished the national market, and deepened its unification. This process was made possible because of the information revolution, the Internet and the global transport network, which render it easier to move goods and people with tremendous speed. Hence symbols such as the flag, the national anthem and even the homeland itself lose their role in a world that not only copes with the coronavirus as a single health unit, but is united in the manner of production, consumption, and abolition of customs. If we add to this the joint effort to prevent global warming and save the planet, a universal task that will not be achieved without world-wide unity.

It is clear that the capitalist economic regime has failed to respond to the health crisis. Privatization on the one hand, and the complete neglect of health, education, housing, welfare and means of employment on the other, have deepened the crisis and proved that the poor are the first to pay the price. Let’s face it, governments were forced to “shut down the economy” because the health care system was unprepared to take in a large number of patients, lacking the requisite numbers of beds, inhalators  and medical staff; In Italy, thousands died not because of the coronavirus, but because of the health system’s collapse. We have discovered that despite the technological age in which we have been living for several decades already, the education system stood by helplessly and failed to prepare for remote learning. The welfare system lacks the resources necessary to absorb the millions of unemployed or self-employed who have lost their source of livelihood. Meanwhile, the private sector that was prioritized over the public sector (for example Google, Amazon and Facebook continues to use its massive capital to profit from the crisis itself, without providing any help to alleviate the citizens’ suffering.

When we move to discussion of a green economy, the paradigm changes. It is a cooperative economy built on true principles of democracy. An economy that directs the political regime and parties to serve the general public good instead of the capital controlled by the few. The role of the state is to manage the economy and take steps that strengthen the basic infrastructure for the benefit of society, whether it is health, education, public housing, transportation, internet communication, vocational training, strengthening bargaining power with employers, and monetary compensation or division of labor among employees to provide a dignified source of livelihood for all. The prevailing opinion is that many professions that have disappeared due to the coronavirus will not return. That the world economy is turning to a new mode of production controlled by robots, artificial intelligence, commerce via the Internet, the “Internet of things (IoT); and is moving to renewable energy, electric and autonomous vehicles. While these ideas began to be heard several years before the coronavirus, the epidemic has become an accelerator for this global development. Yet this reality requires a new way of thinking about politics and society – it does not fit into the framework of capitalism, and requires new priorities. Given the terrible failure of the confrontation with the coronavirus in China and the US, there is no escaping the question of what society we want to live in in the future: will we continue to support forms like the communist capitalist and democratic capitalist regimes, or will we pave the way for a new paradigm.

The coronavirus as a catalyst for political change

The epidemic has affected politics in both the United States and Israel. There is a good chance that the US presidential elections will lead to Trump’s defeat in early November. In Israel, too, Netanyahu’s failed handling of the crisis, his preference for his personal legal interests, and the proliferation of political considerations in dealing with the pandemic resulted in a major setback in his popularity. But the more substantial change is undoubtedly taking place in the United States, which has witnessed the largest protest movement in decades, led by a broad coalition headed by the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement is united behind Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris, the first black woman from a major party to run for this office. When Hillary Clinton ran for president with a white man as her vice president, deep reservations arose from the left wing of the party that supported Bernie Sanders. Many felt reticence toward Clinton, who seemed the representative of a failed administration, and situated too close to capital. The rise of Donald Trump was a huge surprise and shock to the entire world. On the one hand, dictators like Putin, Erdogan, Kim Jong-un, al-Sisi, Assad, bin Salman, or populist right-wing leaders like Netanyahu and the leaders of isolationist parties in Europe, led by Johnson, celebrated, each for his own reasons. In contrast, more “sane” countries, led by EU leaders, went into shock, and not in vain. Trump attacked the NATO alliance, withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, and rescinded the nuclear deal with Iran. The Democratic Party, influenced by its left-wing’s messages learned its lesson – not to repeat the mistakes of Obama who, contrary to his promises, preferred capital, large monopolies and Wall Street financers, all of which deepened poverty and social disparities, and created the fertile soil in which Trump grew. The selection of Clinton as the presidential candidate was a slap in the face to a public that wanted change. It is possible that Trump’s statement “Obama is the reason I came to power” is the only truth he has uttered to date.

The shock of Trump’s election has increased the influence of the voices demanding a fundamental change in the Democratic Party. The first change was the selection of candidates with a new profile: more blacks and more women. Leading them is New York congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has gained immense popularity and adopted a socialist approach and the Green New Deal; Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is waging a campaign against the monopolies, and especially against the giant Internet companies – Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google – and is demanding their dissolution under the Antitrust Act. The popular struggle and mass demonstrations across the US, which were influenced by the assassination of black citizen George Floyd, gave the election campaign further enthusiasm and stamina, so much so that Biden is ahead of Trump by significant margins in all opinion polls.

Trump failed to address the coronavirus crisis and attacked anyone who warned of its dangers, including scientists, experts, governors, and politicians. He accused the Democratic Party of inventing the pandemic only to advance itself in the elections. Trump also adopted racist positions and praised supporters of white supremacy; adopted a position against Obamacare; supports the prevention of abortion; adopts various conspiracy theories; harms the legal system; doubts the credibility of the elections; and refuses to commit to an orderly transfer of power in case of lose. He savagely attacks and mocks Biden, a representative of the Democratic Party, and even members of the Republican Party, so much so that his stay in power poses a danger to the democratic regime and creates the threat of instigating a civil war within American society.

Because of the dangerous situation, and the depth of the current crisis on all levels, the Democratic Party is faced with only one choice – to make a radical change at the political level: removing the influence of capital; implementing deep economic reforms; improving the health system; improving the state of the labor market and protecting the right of association; changing the tax policy that favors the rich at the expense of the poor; repairing the education system to improve its level and train the new generation for the future; annulling the overly high tuition of universities and the debts of graduates that harm their future; adopting renewable energy; dismantling monopolies; repairing the legal system; dealing with racism in the police ranks; abolishing private prisons; changing laws like the prohibition of using soft drugs, which put millions of blacks in prisons; correcting psychological treatment systems; safeguarding the right of women to abortion, and other steps that could prevent an eccentric person like Trump from coming to power again.

The coronavirus does not forgive Netanyahu

The pandemic reached Israel in February 2020, at the height of the 23rd Knesset election campaign, which was held on March 2. The election results were not much different from those of the previous two rounds, and Netanyahu failed to establish a supportive bloc of 61 MKs composed of ultra-Orthodox and right-wingers. He dragged the country to three rounds of elections for one and only reason – to attempt to evade prosecution on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu hoped that through a majority bloc he would succeed in passing laws that would overturn the trial. His second term as prime minister, with serious pending charges that could result in imprisonment, created a deep constitutional crisis in Israel, dividing society between the captive base of his supporters and those who see him as a corrupt person who does not deserve to serve as prime minister.

Even when Netanyahu’s opposition won 62 seats, and Blue and White won 33 seats as opposed to 36 for the Likud, the opposition was not sufficiently politically homogeneous, and had no common denominator other than opposition to Netanyahu. Although the Joint Arab List went as far as recommending Gantz to the president to form a government, it was impossible to create a Center-Left parliamentary block big enough to win the majority because of opposition from members such as Moshe Ya’alon’s faction (Telem).  After the legal period, that allowed Gantz and then Netanyahu to form a government ended, and in view of the increasing severity of the coronavirus crisis, Gantz decided, at the cost of splitting from Lapid and Ya’alon, and disappointing thousands of his followers, to reach a rotation agreement with Netanyahu. Even when a parity government was formed that gave Blue and White half of all government ministries, with the other half divided between the components of the right-wing bloc: Likud, Agudat Israel, Shas, Derech Eretz, Gesher, and the Jewish Home, the number of Gantz MKs dropped to 14 after the split with Lapid,  thus weakening his influence within the coalition. Netanyahu took advantage of the situation to launch a poisonous campaign of incitement against the Attorney General and the State Attorney’s Office. He withdrew from the agreement with Gantz; and especially from approval of the state budget, without which the government would disband automatically. Netanyahu is trying to escape the rotation agreement with Gantz that is due to take effect in September 2021, and force a fourth election, hoping to reach a majority that will allow him to pass a High Court override clause and other changes that will allow him to postpone/annul  his trial. In May, it seemed that the pandemic was contained and Netanyahu declared victory over the pandemic, praised himself as a wise leader, and called on Israelis to return to their normal lives. His popularity rose, and polls predicted 40 seats. This was the opportunity to hold the fourth round of elections.

But the situation was quickly reversed; the pandemic returned to spread at record speed, Netanyahu did not want to impose a second lockdown because he feared anger and public frustration. The crisis reached its peak after Israel became world leader in the number of per capita diagnosed infections daily, and the death toll rose to more than 2,000. Just as Netanyahu’s popularity soared after the ending of the first lockdown, it plummeted just as quickly as he was forced to re-impose a total lockdown, which deepened the economic crisis and exacerbated the difficult situation of millions of citizens.

Compared to the success of the first lockdown, for which Netanyahu gained confidence in his policies, the increase in morbidity over the summer was undoubtedly influenced by a lack of trust in the government and Netanyahu’s discretion. Netanyahu rejected the plan of Coronavirus Project Coordinator Roni Gamzu to lock down the red cities (mainly ultra-Orthodox) due to his need for support of the ultra-Orthodox factions in government; and launched a savage campaign of incitement against his opponents protesting in front of his Jerusalem home. The anger and doubt of Netanyahu’s motives only intensified.

The slogan “Just Not Bibi” (Go!) plays into the hands of the Right

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the political, social and economic weaknesses of Israeli society. Politically, it is clear that Israel is at a dead end as the political system has failed to produce a stable government to run the country. Prosecuting Netanyahu has plunged the political arena into a crisis, with many of his supporters seeing nothing wrong with Netanyahu serving as prime minister with three pending indictments against him. This approach includes the base of the Likud, which benefits from the bonuses that come with proximity to power and Netanyahu’s policies that have created economic stability and welfare for broad sections of the middle class and public sector workers. The right-wing religious public also aligns itself with Netanyahu, who guarantees it generous budgets for what is increasingly seen as a type of “autonomy” exercised independently from the general state systems.

On the other side is the other half of the public, including the marginalized Arab population, which suffers from Netanyahu’s racist incitement. The reason for Netanyahu’s obsession with the issue is simple – he is constantly striving to prevent the possibility that the Joint List could be a partner in a liberal and left-wing opposition that sees Netanyahu as a threat to the democratic and justice systems. Netanyahu’s plan (which has so far failed) to annex parts of the West Bank to Israel is interpreted by the same opposition as a step toward eliminating Israel’s Jewish majority and turning the country into an apartheid state. In addition, it sees the strengthening of religious and conservative elements as a threat to the secular character of society and its liberal way of life.

In the past, it was possible to reach understandings between the right and the left, and there were also joint governments (Netanyahu, Barak, Lapid). But after Netanyahu adopted the “bloc” strategy (right-wing plus ultra-Orthodox), he established an exclusive rule for himself, not only vis-a-vis the liberal wing but also within the Likud itself. The possibility of reaching a compromise between the two blocs became impossible, and the hostility to Netanyahu and the call for his removal became the slogan of the opposition camp.

The split between the various social groups stood out following the first lockdown, with each stratum or sector making decisions independently and blatantly violating central government directives. The alarming rise in morbidity in Arab society reflected a refusal to obey the government. People held numerous weddings and continued to pray in mosques, disregarding the pandemic. Only when the number of victims soared did the heads of the Arab local authorities act together with the clergy to prevent spread of the pandemic.

In the Jewish religious sector, the crisis continues in full force, with religious leaders refusing to obey government directives while using their political influence to blackmail Netanyahu. The third party – the upper middle class, a stratum of educated intellectuals and young people, retired generals, former members of the security forces, and the press – are all united in their hatred of Netanyahu and see him as caring only about cancelling his trial, and all this at the cost of pleasing the ultra-Orthodox and suppressing their democratic right to demonstrate.

On the economic side, a network of failures and neglect of infrastructure has been exposed. The medical system is starved and there is a shortage of beds and medical staff. The education system suffers from overcrowding classrooms, the status and salaries of teachers are poor, there are not enough computers for pupils, and there is no fast internet network. There is no functioning system for vocational training in the professions of the future and there is still reliance on a weakened and temporary workforce. Reliance on polluting energy such as gas and oil continues, and the creation of alternative energy sources is not promoted. There is no well-developed welfare system and assistance to the unemployed. Old-age benefits are meagre to a level that prevents economic and health security for the elderly. There exists no practical plan to protect all the unemployed and self-employed who have suddenly collapsed, and to deal with the danger that an entire generation will be lost. When you combine the crisis in politics, social divisions and economic failure, the result is a deep crisis from which there is no prospect of exiting.

In Israel, as in the rest of the world, a new approach is needed to change the political-economic system. It is clear that the slogan “Just Nor Bibi” is insufficient to create the profound change required to solve these deep problems. How can we fight the right without addressing the question of occupation and providing a solution to the Palestinian problem? How can we continue to demand democracy for Jews and manage and finance apartheid for Palestinians? How can right-wing neoliberalism be fought without setting up an alternative economic plan based on a green new deal? Required are investments in the public sector (health, education, vocational training, transportation, renewable energy) and the end of privatization, which transfers public projects to China or the United Arab Emirates or to private investment funds, whose aim is to increase profits regardless of the public and the lives of Palestinians and Israelis.

How do we deal with the current crisis?

The first question that must be asked is what faces us in the immediate future. What are the developments that have the potential to open up new political opportunities for us? How will the crisis affect political developments and awareness of the Palestinian and Israeli publics? Can our slogan “One State – Green Economy” be a call to mobilize the public, or will it remain a future idea that cannot be implemented at the moment?

The Da’am  Party program became most relevant to the new global and Arab situation after 2008 and the collapse of neoliberalism. We were attentive to developments in Egypt and Mahalla El Kubra in 2008 as the first spark of what was defined in early 2011 as the Arab Spring. A massive protest movement that overthrew dictatorial regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, and expanded to Syria and Bahrain. In Europe and the United States, too, a widespread protest movement has arisen against the capitalist regime. We supported the Arab Spring because it placed the call for democracy at the center of the pursuit of a new political order, as well as the demand for social justice. We had hoped that the Arab Spring would sweep the Palestinians and Arab society in Israel, but the response of the Palestinian organizations, the Palestinian Authority and the Joint List was disappointing, as most of them sided with the counter-revolution.

After suppression of the Arab Spring and its imprinting in blood; massacre and expulsion of the Syrians from their homeland; beginning of an unending civil war in Yemen; and the military coup in Egypt against the revolution; there was a sense that the Arab Spring had failed. That it was confronted with strong and powerful forces that fought against change with all their might. Suffice it to mention Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Turkey, Hezbollah and Russia. And yet our position remains clear: Things will not be the same again. For a short time we saw a return of the demonstrations in Iran, then in Iraq, Lebanon, and together with them returned the Arab Spring slogans “bread, freedom, social justice.” Today we see them directed against Iran, even though it allegedly won in Syria. In Sudan, a large-scale civil revolution broke out that led to the removal of the eternal dictator General Omar al-Bashir, who relied on the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. The revolution in Sudan succeeded in forcing a partnership arrangement between the military and civilian forces, which continues today. In Algeria, demonstrations began against the Bouteflika regime, which called for democratic elections free of corruption and forgery. Even these popular revolutions have not yet affected the Palestinians, neither in the territories nor in Israel.

The question to be asked is how the Palestinians can ignore such important historical events that could change the balance of power in the region and put Israel in front of a new political situation. How can it be that the Palestinians, who in addition to the occupation also suffer from the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, and from the internal division between Fatah and Hamas, are not acting against the PA and Israel.  How can the absolute distrust of the Palestinian public in the PA be reconciled with the absence of significant political direction that seeks to change the situation, despite the revolutions being ignited in every corner of the Arab world. And how can we explain that on the one hand many of the Palestinian people have given up on the idea of an independent Palestinian state and prefer one state, and yet there is no significant political movement that waves this banner. Part of the answer lies in the failure of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon to build a new modern and democratic regime.

These developments in the Arab world do not occur in a vacuum. Many of these revolutions were suppressed through external intervention and funding by the Gulf states. The election of Donald Trump was a gift to the corrupt autocratic regimes of the Gulf, for whom democracy is the ultimate enemy. Trump allows for Russian involvement in Syria, the continuation of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and the involvement of both the Emirates and of Turkey in the Libyan civil war. In addition, Trump began implementing the Deal of the Century, moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, stopping aid to the Palestinian Authority, and also encouraging the annexation of settlements to Israel (and later objecting to it). In addition, Trump encouraged Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Bahrain to establish open normalization with Israel, thus completely isolating the Palestinian Authority.

The irony is that while Trump encourages all of the reactionary forces in the Arab world to suppress the Arab Spring, the spread of the coronavirus in the US has been a catalyst for the entry of spring into the U.S. itself. The huge mass movement that blacks are leading against racism and for social justice stems from the same reasons that pushed young Arabs into the streets and squares – a corrupt regime that leaves no future and horizon for the masses. This is why young blacks and whites in the United States take to the streets. But unlike what has happened in the Arab world, they have a political answer – overthrowing Trump and gaining a majority in the US Congress.

When we founded the Da’am Party 25 years ago, we determined that political change would come from Western countries, as the Third World does not have the necessary resources to change the regime. What is happening today in the US confirms this prediction. If we want to answer the question of what we expect after the coronavirus pandemic, the answer lies in Biden’s success or failure to move Trump out of the White House. The world after the pandemic and Trump’s removal will be a different world. Numerous issues left without a solution, including in Egypt, Syria, Iran and other Arab countries, will have to get a solution fulfilling the promise of the Arab Spring’s first chapter.

If Trump wanted to save the Saudi regime and its Gulf allies through an unholy alliance with Israel, the change in US rule heralds the end of these regimes, which have become outcasts and despised in the world due to their criminal involvement in other countries, their support for Trump, and oppression of internal opposition. The change in the United States also heralds the end of Netanyahu, who has lost the Israeli public trust is facing prosecution. He, too, will have to face a new US administration that remembers how he stood up for Trump, thus supporting the tragedy the US went through, losing its world status, paying a price of over 200,000 dead and 7.5 million infected, and a severe economic crisis. This change will not come automatically. It is necessary to internalize that the continuation of the current situation leads us to fascism, and that anyone who wants to prevent this dangerous deterioration must adopt an agenda of radical change.

The post-coronavirus world will not be able to tolerate the effects of populism, fascism or Trump. There is no room for dictatorships like that of General Sisi in Egypt, or of the corrupt regimes in the Gulf, or of Israeli apartheid. Anyone who demonstrates against Netanyahu while raising the Israeli flag is driving factionalism. He takes himself out of the direction of the progress of history. In the United States, blacks refuse to salute the American flag because of the racism directed at them. In Israel, the flag does not in any way symbolize the profound change that demonstrators are fighting for in the United States, or those fighting for democracy in the Arab world. Democratic change in Israel must be based on a Palestinian-Israeli partnership in struggle. If the struggle limits itself to overthrowing Bibi, the result will be the rise of Bennett and the far right. The role of Da’am is first and foremost to create a broad discussion about the future, and to contribute to it with articles, analysis, meetings, and lectures; at every opportunity to build a broad Palestinian-Israeli democratic coalition, which will integrate with the messages and struggles of the Arab Spring, with the democratic movement in the United States, and work with every democratic movement against the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in calling for freedom and democracy for Palestinians as well as all people of the world. History refuses to end. The information and Internet revolution, as well as revolutionary attempts in the world, open up the possibility of change here in Palestine and Israel as well. The current crisis within Israel and the Palestinian Authority can and should pave the way for change and the presentation of new ideas. The initiative to open a broad and genuine dialogue on all these questions, starting with the flag, the Naqba, the partnership between Israelis and Palestinians, the climate crisis and the economic situation, is essential if we want to create a society that can present solutions to the challenges we all face as human beings.

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