According to some, the plan to distribute coronavirus vaccines to foreign countries could have been Israel's finest hour. Petty political battles, however, seemingly nipped the initiative in the bud, likely burying it forever. Now the details have emerged – about a plan that began with good intentions, was poorly managed and ultimately failed.
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Details of the now-stalled plan, obtained by Israel Hayom, reveal that as early as January the National Security Council told Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was handling the matter. In the two months since that briefing, the various relevant parties discussed the issue on numerous occasions, up until two weeks ago, when Gantz changed his position about the plan and began accusing Netanyahu of "operating in the shadows."
A short while after it was reported that Israel had secured a giant stockpile of vaccines, foreign countries began requesting them. On December 29, 2020, around one week after global news outlets began reporting about the "miracle of the Israeli vaccines," the NSS received its first request. The NSS connected Netanyahu with one country leader, with whom the premier maintains a relationship, who asked for "even just a few thousand" vaccines. More and more such requests reached Israeli ambassadors around the world, the Mossad, the NSS and Netanyahu himself. Gantz himself put in a special request to help vaccinate UN peacekeepers in the Sinai Peninsula.
In the meantime, it emerged that 100 Pfizer vaccines were given to the Palestinian Authority, without the approval of the NSS. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which is subordinate to Gantz, received approval to deliver those vaccines by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. Officials at the NSS, which had been managing the corona crisis, were not informed and consequently embarrassed; this – because the state, in its response to the Goldin family's petition to the High Court of Justice to halt vaccine deliveries to Gaza, declared that no vaccines whatsoever had been given to the Palestinians. In actuality, it had come to light, the vaccines were indeed delivered but without the approval of the relevant authorities.
Consequently, NSS head Meir Ben-Shabbat sent a letter on January 7 to Gantz, Ashkenazi, Mendelblit, Edelstein, COGAT and the prime minister's military secretaries emphasizing that Netanyahu is the sole authority for approving vaccine transfers to foreign entities and that the NSS was managing the issue. "We ask that any [vaccine] transfer first be presented to the prime minister for approval," Ben-Shabbat wrote.
"As early as January everyone knew about the vaccine donations to foreign countries, and that the prime minister and the NSS were coordinating this matter," an official familiar with the events told Israel Hayom. "The requests to receive vaccinations also come from the defense minister and Foreign Ministry. Everything was known, and no one expressed any problems or reservations."
As the requests from various entities began piling up, Ben-Shabbat decided to devise a system for determining which countries will receive the vaccines and how many. Two department heads at the NSS – Reuven Azar, head of the foreign policy division, and "Maoz,"a former Shin Bet official who handles relations with countries that don't officially recognize Israel – were tasked with drafting the criteria. In late January they finalized the criteria and formulated a list of countries to which Israel would deliver vaccines. It was decided that the vaccines would be allotted based on the morbidity rates in each country, its ability to independently inoculate its citizens, and the diplomatic benefit to Israel.
Thus, for example, Mauritania was added to the list, a country that officially does not recognize Israel but which the NSS believes could move toward normalization if it were to receive vaccines. It was also decided that Israel would only give the vaccines it had purchased from pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna. Israel possessed a relatively small number of Moderna's vaccine (some 250,000 doses), which regardless wasn't designated for use in Israel as it would have disrupted the information being collected for the Pfizer study. It should be noted that the Moderna stockpile is expected to expire within three months, hence the urgent need to deliver the doses abroad.
Moreover, the amount earmarked for delivery was limited to 5,000 doses per country. Altogether, the NSS approved the transfer of 46,000 Moderna vaccines to 20 countries. It was also determined that each country receiving the vaccines would pay for them and for shipping. Initially, the NSS wanted to make sure the Pfizer vaccines were effective and in sufficient supply for Israeli citizens. Later on, a "vaccine war" erupted between the European Union and Great Britain, and Ben-Shabbat was concerned that the vaccine distribution plan would harm Israel's international standing. Once these issues were resolved, the plan was given the green light.
On February 14, Ben-Shabbat sent another letter to Edelstein, Ashkenazi and the Mossad, detailing the list of countries that would receive the vaccines. The entire Foreign Ministry, from the director-general on down, was aboard. The list included San Marino, Ethiopia, Chad, Mauritania, Slovakia, Cyprus, and Hungary. The Czech Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, and Rwanda were also on the list and even sent planes to Israel to collect the vaccines before Ben-Shabbat asked the attorney general for clarifications last week.
Gantz and others began saying that Netanyahu was making deals involving vaccines, purchased by the Israeli taxpayer, without proper oversight or accountability.
They also argued that such deals require cabinet discussion and approval. If Gantz himself was the one who asked the NSS, in January, for vaccines for the Sinai peacekeeping force, as indicated by the documents obtained by Israel Hayom – it isn't clear why in late February he decided it was necessary to convene the cabinet, or on what he is basing his claim that the prime minister "is operating in the shadows."
From the moment the attorney general began examining the issue, the foreign vaccine distributions were halted and don't appear close to restarting. Contrary to Gantz's claim, Mendelblit wrote that the law does not determine who is authorized to distribute vaccines, but recommended that next time the government or cabinet make these decisions.
As it pertains to the NSS's management role, officials familiar with the details say there is nothing extraordinary about it. "The ministries were informed from the start. As you can see, the foreign and defense ministries submitted their own requests," said one official. "The law doesn't require a government or cabinet discussion, and the other ministries were in the loop regardless, such that nothing was being done in the shadows."
A spokesman for Gantz's said in a response: "The fact that the prime minister declared himself in charge of handling the vaccines, doesn't give him the authority to manage them like a bazar merchant. Just as he has tried concealing weapons deals and diplomatic agreements, Netanyahu is trying to bypass the accepted mechanisms. If there is a diplomatic or security need, he is invited to present them to the relevant forum before he makes a decision."
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