end medical apartheid

Dear Dr. Anthony Fauci,

As you know well, this pandemic exposed the health inequities that have resulted from centuries of systemic racism, disproportionately harming indigenous and Black communities in particular. We also recognize that the impact of racialized disparities in medical relief and access is global in scope. Specifically, we write to ask that you use your platform to speak out against Israel’s inequitable vaccine policies; reject the Dan David Prize that whitewashes those policies; and challenge endemic racism in U.S. public health policy domestically and globally.

To build a world where there is healthcare for all, we must denounce Medical Apartheid wherever it manifests: In line with these values we ask you to-

1. Demand the right to healthcare for the Palestinian people: Publicly affirm the human rights community’s consensus that Israel is obligated to vaccinate Palestinians as an occupied population under international law.

2. Refuse complicity with Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people: Reject the prize! Accepting the Dan David Prize serves to legitimize Israel's refusal to provide vaccine access to Palestinians despite its international obligation to do so as the occupying power. 

3. Advocate for racially just health policies in the U.S. and everywhere: Make vaccine apartheid policies unacceptable anywhere by supporting racially just U.S. health policies in the M4BL COVID-19 Policy Platform and specifically: single-payer healthcare, the Anti-Racism in Public Health Act, and the vaccine TRIPS waiver.

1) Demand the right to healthcare for the Palestinian people

As a primary funder and diplomatic backer of Israel’s policies against the Palestinian people, U.S. policy and taxpayer dollars fuel a separate-and-unequal system of healthcare access in Israel and Palestine. Israeli policies deny patients the right to travel to access treatment (Al-Shabaka), block the movement of medicine through blockade (World Health Organization), and, most recently have created a reality where Palestinians are approximately 60 times less likely to have access to the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine than Israelis, according to Doctors Without Borders. Israel is refusing its obligations under international law to provide support purchasing and distributing vaccines to Palestinians under Israel's military control, as documented by over 100 Palestinian human rights organizations, 31 Israeli, Palestinian, and international organizations, and leading U.S. human rights groups like Human Rights Watch. We hope you will join the ranks of conscientious public figures such as Jamaal Bowman who named that he was familiar with the systemic racism at play and called on Israel to provide equitable vaccine access to Palestinians, as obligated under international law.

Palestinians continue to speak for themselves to expose our investment in unjust Israeli policies, and the need to invest in life-giving policies instead. Representative Rashida Tlaib, a preeminent voice for racially just policies for her constituents in Detroit and across the US, explained these structures: “[My family members] are trying to live a good life, a free life, free of these oppressive policies that deny them access to public health, deny them access to freedom of travel, deny them access to economic opportunities. It is so critically important that we call it out. Our country continues to enable [Israel] and enable Netanyahu.” And Ryah Aqel and Mohammed El-Kurd explained the injustice of the U.S.’s $3.8 billion in military funding each year to Israel, “The U.S. government continues to enable this kind of brutality by funneling money to the occupation, even as the American working class struggles to survive in the face of a pandemic, increasing poverty, unemployment, and a homelessness epidemic.”

2) Refuse complicity with Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people: Reject the prize!

Dr. Fauci, given that the rationale for your receipt of the Dan David Prize was speaking “truth to power,” we could not remain silent in good conscience. As the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel writes, accepting the prize is also a violation of the academic boycott called for by Palestinian intellectuals and civil society due to the role of universities in bolstering systematic discrimination and land theft that perpetuates Israel’s system of settler colonial violence against Palestinians. In the case of Tel Aviv University (TAU) that administers the prize, this Israeli university directly contributes to research and technology to bolster the military occupation of Palestinian land including collaboration with Israel’s military (the IDF) and weapons manufacturers (like Elbit systems). To receive a prize for advancing public health from a country that is specifically undermining it to racialized population under their control—including bulldozing a COVID-19 testing clinic, raiding the Palestinian Health Work Committee Headquarters, and slowing the transfer of vaccines—whitewashes Israel’s occupation policies that have directly undermined Palestinian public health during a pandemic.

3) Advocate for racially just health policies in the U.S. and everywhere

The U.S. is also a bastion of medical apartheid: communities of color are both the hardest hit by COVID-19 and less likely to receive vaccines on average. But, COVID-19 is only the latest demonstration of how medical care is deeply entangled in centuries of structural racism and violence directed at indigenous, Black, and brown people. The Movement for Black Lives’ COVID-19 Policy Platform explains, this “crisis becomes an excuse for criminalization” as the government channels more money towards militarization and policing instead of community needs, like healthcare. We ask that you support this platform as well as several related policies: single-payer healthcare to provide quality healthcare access for all people; Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Rep. Barbara Lee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Anti-Racism in Public Health Act to address structural racism as a public health crisis; and reversing the Trump administration’s block on an emergency waiver of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for COVID-19 vaccines to defend our collective wellbeing.

A Tel Aviv University student who was recently denied a vaccine that was administered campus wide due to her Palestinian identity explained the matter succinctly, “I don’t want charity. I want justice and equality.” Dr. Fauci, medical apartheid is a threat to justice everywhere. Please raise your voice with us.

Sincerely,

National Organizations

Action Center on Race & the Economy

Adalah Justice Project

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC)

Center for Constitutional Rights

CHANGE (Center for Health and Gender Equity)

Committee of Interns and Residents-SEIU (CIR-SEIU)

Democratic Socialists for America BDS & Palestine Solidarity Working Group

Democratic Socialists of America Medicare for All Working Group

Disciples Palestine/Israel Network

Dream Defenders

Eyewitness Palestine

Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)

GABRIELA USA

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

HEART

ICNA Council for Social Justice

IfNotNow

Israel Palestine Mission Network

Jewish Voice for Peace Action

Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council (JVP HAC)

MADRE

Middle East in Focus, KPFK

Movement for Black Lives

MPower Change

Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC)

National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Palestine Subcommittee

National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP)

New Generation for Palestine (NGP)

Palestine Legal

Palestinian Youth Movement

Project South

Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD)

United Methodists for Kairos Response

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)

US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)

USA Palestine Mental Health Network

War Resisters League

Workers World Party (WWP)

Local Organizations

1for3.org 

Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine

Arab American Civic Council

Baltimore Palestine Solidarity

BDS Boston

Central NJ Jewsh Voice for Peace

Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine

Corvallis Palestine Solidarity

Coulee Region Coalition for Palestinian Rights (CRCPR)

Daarna

Delawareans for Palestinian Human Rights (DelPHR)

Free the People Roc

Good Citizens of DFW 

Healthcare Advocacy Partners

Jew Say No!

Jewish Voice for Peace - Bay Area

Jewish Voice for Peace - Central New Jersey

Jewish Voice for Peace - Central Ohio

Jewish Voice For Peace - New York City

Jewish Voice for Peace - South Florida

Jewish Voice for Peace - San Antonio 

Jewish Voice for Peace - Tucson

Jewish Voice for Peace, Action - Greater Los Angeles

Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) - Milwaukee

Meet a Muslim

Mid-Missourians for Justice in Palestine (MJP)

Middle East Peace Education Coalition

North Carolina Medicare for All Coalition (NCM4A)

Northern New Jersey Jewish Voice for Peace

Occupy Bergen County, New Jersey

Oregon/Idaho United Methodist Holy Land Task Force

Palestine Solidarity Collective - Durham

People for Palestinian-Israeli Justice

Physicians for a National Health Program - Washington

Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP)

Students for Justice in Palestine - Mizzou

Students for Justice in Palestine - Tufts

Students for Justice in Palestine - UMass Amherst

Syracuse Peace Council (SPC)

Texas Coalition for Human Rights (TXCHR)

The Community Church of Boston

Tree of Life Educational Fund

Triangle DSA

United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network (UCC PIN)

Veterans For Peace, Chapter 115

Washington Advocates for Palestinian Rights

Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice, and the Environment

WESPAC Foundation, Inc.

Yalla Indivisible 

Zakat, Aid and Charity Assisting Humanity (ZACAH)

Individuals (all affiliations listed for identification purposes only)

Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, Director and Senior Scholar, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies, San Francisco State University

Huwaida Arraf, Palestine Subcommittee Co-chair, National Lawyers Guild & Executive Board, New Generation for Palestine

Samia Assed, New Mexico Women's March and the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice

Ady Barkan, Be A Hero

Nada Elia, Palestinian scholar-activist, writer, and grassroots organizer

Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University

Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus at Princeton University

Katie Halper, The Katie Halper Show

Marc Lamont Hill, Professor of Media Studies, Temple University

Nadia Hijab, Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Farah Kader, MPH, Researcher at University of Michigan

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Professor of Anthropology and American Studies, Wesleyan University

Robin D. G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor & Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA

Zohran Mamdani, NY State Assembly District 36 & Democratic Socialists of America

Yousef Munayyer, Non-resident Fellow, Arab Center Washington DC & Former USCPR ED

Nadine Naber, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Linda Sarsour, Executive Director, MPower Change

Azadeh Shahshahani, Legal & Advocacy Director, Project South