Israel's vaccination: inequality through settler colonialism, biopolitics, and citizenship

Howard, Nicolas R (2022) Israel's vaccination: inequality through settler colonialism, biopolitics, and citizenship. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

Between December 2019 and January 2022, the World Health Organization confirmed over 240 million cases of Covid-19 globally. During this same period, in Israel's Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), the virus' presence resulted in 4,900 Palestinian deaths and 450,000 infections. Despite Covid-19's prevalence in the OPT, Israeli officials, representatives of the occupying power responsible for protecting the health of Israel's OPT population, refused to distribute vaccines to Palestinians. Through a mixed qualitative methodological approach, including a narrative analysis and an historical analysis of Israeli officials' language in press releases, news clips, and social media posts, I analyzed how Israeli officials legitimized their refusal to vaccinate the Palestinian population. Through my research, I found that Israeli officials argued that a dedication to human rights and public health guided Israel's vaccination campaign by deploying humanitarian language and claiming to represent a nation with the highest vaccination rate globally. However, I argued that these values do not guide Israel's vaccination campaign. The qualitative data I analyzed demonstrated that Israeli officials justified withholding vaccines from Palestinians by relying on citizenship as an internationally recognized form of social exclusion. Despite Israeli officials' ultimate sovereignty over all of Israel/Palestine, they depicted Palestinians in the OPT as constituting a separate nation, concealing how Israel's occupation consistently prevents Palestinian nationhood and obscures the OPT's economic dependence on Israel. In this way, Israeli officials deliberately disregarded the political and material barriers Israel creates to deny Palestinian autonomy. Palestinians only received vaccines from the Israeli government when their labor became essential for the functioning of the Israeli economy. By employing theories of biopolitics and necropolitics, my research revealed that the distinction between the two concepts remains unclear. Instead, I suggest the two theoretical concepts exist along a continuum. This thesis sheds light on how Israel systematically denied rights to health in Palestine by relying on a liberal framework to approach its vaccination campaign. This research critiques all powerful nation-states that utilize citizenship and labor to legitimize the inequalities perpetuated by settler colonial and capitalist systems. Instead of relying on citizenship and capitalism as formal mechanisms to exclude populations, I suggest social change resides in recognizing human rights that exist outside socially constructed categories.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	biopolitics; Covid-19 vaccines; inequality; Israeli-Palestinian conflict; necropolitics; settler colonialism
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Criminology and Criminal Justice
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2023 16:32
Last Modified:	06 Jun 2023 16:32
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/5962

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